. He had come with a definite
intention, and he lost no time in executing it. She wore, moreover, a
look which he eagerly interpreted as expectancy.

"I have been coming to see you for six months, now," he said, "and I
have never spoken to you a second time of marriage. That was what you
asked me; I obeyed. Could any man have done better?"

"You have acted with great delicacy," said Madame de Cintre.

"Well, I'm going to change, now," said Newman. "I don't mean that I am
going to be indelicate; but I'm going to go back to where I began. I AM
back there. I have been all round the circle. Or rather, I have never
been away from here. I have never ceased to want what I wanted then.
Only now I am more sure of it, if possible; I am more sure of myself,
and more sure of you. I know you better, though I don't know anything
I didn't believe three months ago. You are everything--you are beyond
everything--I can imagine or desire. You know me now; you MUST know me.
I won't say that you have seen the best--but you have seen the worst.
I hope you have been thinking all this while. You must have seen that I
was only waiting; you can't suppose that I was changing. What will you
say to me, now? Say that everything is clear and reasonable, and that I
have been very patient and considerate, and deserve my reward. And then
give me your hand. Madame de Cintre do that. Do it."

"I knew you were only waiting," she said; "and I was very sure this day
would come. I have thought about it a great deal. At first I was half
afraid of it. 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. "I am weak--I am weak," he heard her say.

"All the more reason why you should give yourself up to me," he
answered. "Why are you troubled? There is nothing but happiness. Is that
so hard