But I love you; I love you!" In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all modern new-comers.

Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.
Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control touched Ruth strangely.

She knew he was five or six years her senior, but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in age; not quite so young.
"Well ?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, passive hands tremble a little in his.

Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great kindness in them.
A sudden eager light leaped into his face.
"Will you ?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold of hers.

"Will you ?" There was a moment's pause, in which the whole world seemed to stand quite still and wait for her answer.
"Yes," she said at last, "I will." "I am glad I did it," she said to herself, half an hour later, as she leaned her tired head against the carved oak chimney-piece in her bedroom, and absently traced with her finger the Latin inscription over the fireplace.