But I am not afraid of it now." She paused a moment, and then she added, "It's a relief." She was sitting on a low chair, and Newman was on an ottoman, near her.
He leaned a little and took her hand, which for an instant she let him keep.

"That means that I have not waited for nothing," he said.

She looked at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears.

"With me," he went on, "you will be as safe--as safe"-- and even in his ardor he hesitated a moment for a comparison--"as safe," he said, with a kind of simple solemnity, "as in your father's arms." Still she looked at him and her tears increased.

Then, abruptly, she buried her face on the cushioned arm of the sofa beside her chair, and broke into noiseless sobs.