Heaven help him!--he did not advance nor take her hands, which she held out, kept back by his honour and promise--till he saw that her eyes were full of tears, that her lips were quivering, unable to articulate anything more, and that her figure swayed slightly, as if tottering. Then all that was superficial went to the winds. He took her back through the half-lighted passage, supporting her tenderly, to Mr. Tottenham’s room. The door closed behind them, and Gussy turned to him with swimming eyes--eyes running over with tears and wistful happiness. She could not speak. She let him hold her, and looked up at him, all her heart in her face. Poor Edgar was seized upon at the same moment, all unprepared as he was, by that sudden gush of long-restrained feeling which carries all before it. “Is this how it is to be?” he said, no louder than a whisper, holding her fast and close, grasping her slender arm, as if she might still flee from him, or revolt from his touch. But Gussy had no mind to escape. Either she had nothing to say, or she was still too much shaken to attempt to say it. She let her head drop like a flower overcharged, and leaned on him and fell a-sobbing--fell on his neck, as the Bible says, though Gussy’s little figure fell short of that, and she only leaned as high as she could reach, resting there like a child. If ever a man came at a step out of purgatory, or worse, into Paradise, it was this man. Utterly alone half an hour ago, now companied so as all the world could not add to him. He did not try to stop her sobbing, but bent his head down upon hers, and I think for one moment let his own heart expand into something which was like a sob too--an inarticulate utterance of all this sudden rapture, unexpected, unlooked for, impossible as it was. I do not know which was the first to come to themselves. It must have been Gussy, whose sobs had relieved her soul. She stirred within his arm, and lifted her head, and tried to withdraw from him. “Not yet, not yet,” said Edgar. “Think how long I have wanted you, how long I have yearned for you; and that I have no right to you even now.” “Right!” said Gussy, softly--“you have the only right--no one can have any right but you.” “Is it so?--is it so? Say it again,” said Edgar. “Say that I am not a selfish hound, beguiling you; but that you will have it so. Say you will have it so! What I will is not the question--it is your will that is my law.” “Do you know what you are saying--or have you turned a little foolish?” said the Gussy of old, with a laugh which was full of the tears with which her eyes were still shining and bright; and then she paused, and looking up at him, blushing, hazarded an inquiry--“Are you in love with me now?” she said. “Now; and for how long?--three years--every day and all day long!” cried Edgar. “It could not do you any harm so far off. But I should not have dared to think of you so much if I had ever hoped for this.”