Her own arms seemed to quiver with delight as she said: "Would you indeed like me to be always with you?
To me it would be a happiness unspeakable; and to you, what would it be ?" I thought that she wished to hear me speak my love to her, and that, woman-like, she had led me to the utterance, and so I spoke again of the passion that now raged in me, she listening eagerly as we strained each other tight in our arms.

At last there came a pause, a long, long pause, and our hearts beat consciously in unison as we stood together.
Presently she said in a sweet, low, intense whisper, as soft as the sighing of summer wind: "It shall be as you wish; but oh, my dear, you will have to first go through an ordeal which may try you terribly! Do not ask me anything! You must not ask, because I may not answer, and it would be pain to me to deny you anything.

Marriage with such an one as I am has its own ritual, which may not be foregone.

It may.

.