Anything but that." It was how she had felt again, and her hold on him tightened with sudden joy.

So well he knew what that grip meant! He did not tell her that he had not loved her fully until now.

He would have liked to tell her how true love had been born in him as he saw her stealing back to him, but it was surely best for her not to know that any transformation had been needed.

"I don't say that I love you more now than ever before," he said carefully, "but one thing I do know: that I never admired you quite so much." She looked up in surprise.
"I mean your character," he said determinedly.

"I have always known how strong and noble it was, but I never quite thought you could do anything so beautiful as this." "Beautiful!" She could only echo the word.
"Many women, even of the best," he told her, "would have resorted to little feminine ways of humbling such a blunderer as I have been: they would have spurned him for weeks; made him come to them on his knees; perhaps have thought that his brutality of a moment outweighed all his love.