ooked up at him, unable to utter a word--the look
seemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence.
But he, taking her clasped hands between both his, said, in a tone of
reverent adoration--

"Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours--that we can
have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your
grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman.
Say you will not reject me--say you will take me to share all things
with you. Say you will promise to be my wife--say it now. I have been
in doubt so long--I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and
always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love."

The change in Mirah had been gradual. She had not passed at once from
anguish to the full, blessed consciousness that, in this moment of
grief and shame, Deronda was giving her the highest tribute man can
give to woman. With the first tones and the first words, she had only a
sense of solemn comfort, referring this goodness of Deronda's to his
feeling for Ezra. But by degrees the rapturous assurance of unhoped-for
good took possession of her frame: her face glowed under Deronda's as
he bent over her; yet she looked up still with intense gravity, as when
she had first acknowledged with religious gratitude that he had thought
her "worthy of the best;" and when he had finished, she could say
nothing--she could only lift up her lips to his and just kiss them, as
if that were the simplest "yes." They stood then, only looking at each
other, he holding her hands between his--too happy to move, meeting so
fully in their new consciousness that all signs would have seemed to
throw them farther apart, till Mirah said in a whisper: "Let us go and
comfort Ezra."

CHAPTER LXIX.

"The human nature unto which I felt
That I belonged, and reverenced with love,
Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit
Diffused through time and space, with aid derived
Of evidence from monuments, erect,
Prostrate, or leaning toward their common rest
In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime
Of vanished nations."
--WORDSWORTH: _The Prelude_.

Sir Hugo carried out his plan of spending part of the autumn at Diplow,
and by the beginning of October his presence was spreading some
cheerfulness in the neighborhood, among all ranks and persons
concerned, from the stately home of Brackenshaw and Quetcham to the
respectable