if another had spoken.

'You trust me? You believe that I would do my best to please you?'

Thyrza felt a strangeness in his words, but replied to them with a
frank smile:

'I think so, Mr. Grail.'

He was holding his hand to her; mechanically she gave hers. But in the
doing it she became frightened; his face had altered, it was as if he
suffered a horrible pain. Then she heard:

'Will you trust your life to me, Thyrza?'

It was like a flash, dazzling her brain. Never in her idlest moment had
she strayed into a thought of this. He had always seemed to her
comparatively an old man, and his gravity would in itself have
prevented her from viewing him as a possible suitor. He seemed so
buried in his books; he was so unlike the men who had troubled her with
attentions hitherto. Yet he held her hand, and surely his words could
have but one meaning.

Gilbert saw how disconcerted, how almost shocked, she was.

'I didn't mean to say that at once,' he continued hurriedly, releasing
her hand. 'I've been too hasty. You didn't expect that. It isn't fair
to you. Will you sit down?'

He still spoke without guidance of his tongue. He was impelled by a
vast tenderness; the startled look on her face made him reproach
himself; he sought to soothe her, and was incoherent, awkward. As if in
implicit obedience, she moved to a chair. He stood gazing at her, and
the love which had at length burst from the dark depths seized upon all
his being.

'Mr. Grail--'

She began, but her voice failed. She looked at him, and he was smitten
to the heart to see that there were tears in her eyes.

'If it gives you pain,' he said in a low voice, drawing near to her,
'forget that I said anything. I wouldn't for my life make you feel
unhappy.'

Thyrza smiled through her tears. She saw how gentle his expression had
become; his voice touched her. The reverence which she had always felt
for him grew warmer under his gaze, till it was almost the affection of
a child for a father.

'But should I be the right kind of wife for you, Mr. Grail?' she asked,
with a strange simplicity and diffidence. 'I know so little.'

'Can you think of being my wife?' he said, in tones that shook with
restrained emotion. 'I am so much older than you, but you are the first
for whom I have ever felt love. And'--here he tried to smile--'it is
very sure that I shall love you as long as I live.'

Her breast heaved; she held out both her hands to him and said quickly: