I have no business to be out of the
house at this time of the night. If you hadn't made me think you
were in some trouble, I daredn't have come."
"And ain't I in trouble enough--trouble that nothing but your
coming could get me out of? To love your very shadow, and not be
able to get a peep even of that, except in church, where all the
time of the service I'm raging inside like a wild beast in a
cage--ain't that trouble enough to make you come to me?"
Letty's heart leaped up. He loved her, then! Love, real love, was
what it meant! It was paradise! Anything might come that would!
She would be afraid of nothing any more. They might say or do to
her what they pleased--she did not care a straw, if he loved her
--really loved her! And he did! he did! She was going to have him
all to her own self, and nobody was to have any right to meddle
with her more!
"I didn't know you loved me, Tom!" she said, simply, with a
little gasp.
"And I don't know yet whether you love me," returned Tom.
"Of course, if you love _me_," answered Letty, as if
everybody must give back love for love.
Tom took her again in his arms, and Letty was in greater bliss
than she had ever dreamed possible. From being a nobody in the
world, she might now queen it to the top of her modest bent; from
being looked down on by everybody, she had the whole earth under
her feet; from being utterly friendless, she had the heart of Tom
Helmer for her own! Yet even then, eluding the barriers of Tom's
arms, shot to her heart, sharp as an arrow, the thought that she
was forsaking Cousin Godfrey.
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