His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden--deep, dense darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress.... Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him to her. "Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You know I have." "Betty! ... sweetheart..." There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house. "Forever and ever, Nat?" "Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!" End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance