“When I see you after an interval my heart rushes out to you, my pulses leap. I feel myself growing pale. I am paralysed and devoid of words. Margaret! My very soul breathes _Margaret_, my wonderful Margaret. I cannot get my breath.” Her eyes shone and exulted. “It is not like that always?” she whispered, leaning towards him. “It is like that always. But today it was more than that. I had not seen you for a week, a whole long week. Sometimes in that week I had not dared look forward.” “And then you saw me.” She was hanging upon his words. He got up abruptly and walked a few paces away from her, to the edge of the sea. She smiled quietly to herself when he left her like that. He was suffering, he could not bear the contrast between what she had thought of him and he of her. “Gabriel!” she called him back presently, called softly and he came swiftly. “I had better go back to town by the next train. I disappoint you.” “Silly!” She was amazingly, alluringly smiling into his dour eyes, not satisfied until he smiled too. “It is my sense of style. I am like grammar; all moods and tenses. You want me to tell you everything, don’t you?” “Am I the man for you? that is what I want you to tell me. I don’t know what you mean by that sense of strangeness—I cannot bear it.” “Don’t you vary? wonder, doubt?” “I always knew from the first afternoon when you were shown into my room in Greyfriars’, your black fur framing your exquisite porcelain face, your eyes like wavering stars, that you were the only woman in the world. Since then the conviction of it grows deeper and deeper, more certain. You are never out of my mind. I know I am not good enough for you, too old and grave. But you have let me hope. Oh! you wonderful child.” For still she was smiling at him in that dazzling alluring way. He was at her feet and the hem of her dress again against his lips. “Don’t you understand, can’t I make you understand? I adore you, I worship you. I want nothing from you except that you let me tell you so sometimes.” “It is so much nicer when you write it,” she murmured. “Don’t.” She cajoled him. “I can’t take it lightly,” he burst out. “Pity me, forgive me, but don’t laugh at me.” “I am not laughing.” “I know. You are an angel of sweetness, goodness. Margaret, let me love you!” * * * * *