"My story," said Godfrey at last with a gasp, and stopped.
"Yes," said Isobel. "What is it?"
"Oh!" he exclaimed in an agony, "a very short one. I love you, that's all."
A little quiver ran through her, causing her dress to shake and the gold Mexican gods on her necklace to tinkle against each other. Then she grew still as a stone, and raising those large and steady eyes of hers, looked him up and down, finally fixing them upon his own.
"Is that true?" she asked.
"True! It is as true as life and death, or as Heaven and Hell."
"I don't know anything about Heaven and Hell; they are hypothetical, are they not? Life and death are enough for me," and she stopped.
"Then by life and death, for life and death, and for ever, I love you, Isobel."
"Thank you," she said, and stopped once more.
"You don't help one much. Have you nothing to say?"
"What is there to say? You made a statement for which I thanked you. You asked no question."
"It is a question," he exclaimed indignantly. "If I love you, of course I want to know if you love me."
"Then why did you not say so? But," she added very deliberately, "since you want to know, I do and always have and always shall, in life or death--and for ever--if that means anything."
He stared at her, tried to utter something and failed. Then he fell back upon another very primitive and ancient expedient. Flinging his arms about her, he pressed her to his heart and kissed her again and again and again; nor, in her moment of complete surrender, did she scruple to kiss him back.
It was while they were thus engaged, offering a wonderful spectacle of love triumphant and rejoicing in its triumph, that another person who was passing the church bethought him of its shelter as a refuge from the pouring rain. Seeing the open door, Mr. Knight, for it was he, slipped into the great building in his quiet, rather cat-like fashion, but on its threshold saw, and stopped. Notwithstanding the shadows, he recognised them in a moment. More, the sight of this pair, the son whom he disliked and the woman whom he hated, thus embraced, thus lost in a sea of passion, moved him to white fury, so that he lifted his clenched hands above his head and shook them, muttering: "And in my church, my church!"
Then unable to bear more of this spectacle, he slipped away again, heedless of the pouring skies.
By nature, although in obedience to a rash promise once he had married, Mr. Knight was a true woman-hater. That sex and everything to do with it were repellent to him. Even the most harmless manifestations of natural affection between male and female he considered disgusting, indeed indecent, and if these were carried any further he held it to be among the greatest of crimes. He was one of those who, if he had the power, would have hounded any poor girl who, in the country phrase, "had got into trouble," to the river brink and over it, as a creature not fit to live; or if she escaped destruction, would have, and indeed often had, pursued her with unceasing malignity, thinking that thereby he did God service. His attitude towards such a person was that of an Inquisitor towards a fallen nun.