The words moved him.  It was not with conscious insincerity that he spoke of his love and his intellectual aims as interdependent, yet he knew that Annabel revealed the truer mind.

‘And my desire is for the happiness of your love!’ he exclaimed.  ’Forget that pedantry—­always my fault.  I cannot feel sure that my other motives will keep their force, but I know that this desire will be only stronger in me as time goes on.’

Yet when she kept silence the habit of his thought again uttered itself.

’I shall pursue this work that I have undertaken, because, loving you, I dare not fall below the highest life of which I am capable.  I know that you can see into my nature with those clear eyes of yours.  I could not love you if I did not feel that you were far above me.  I shall never be worthy of you, but I shall never cease in my striving to become so.’

The quickening of her blood, which at first troubled her, had long since subsided.  She could now listen to him, and think of her reply almost with coldness.  There was an unreality in the situation which made her anxious to bring the dialogue to an end.

‘I have all faith in you,’ she said.  ’I hope—­I feel assured—­that something will come of your work; but it will only be so if you pursue it for its own sake.’

The simple truth of this caused him to droop his eyes again with a sense of shame.  He grew impatient with himself.  Had he no plain, touching words in which to express his very real love—­words such as every man can summon when he pleads for this greatest boon?  Yet his shame heightened the reverence in which he held her; passion of the intellect breathed in his next words.

’If you cannot love me with your heart, in your mind you can be one with me.  You feel the great and the beautiful things of life.  There is no littleness in your nature.  In reading with you just now I saw that your delight in poetry was as spirit-deep as my own; your voice had the true music, and your cheeks warmed with sympathy.  You do not deny me the right to claim so much kinship with you.  I, too, love all that is rare and noble, however in myself I fall below such ideals.  Say that you admit me as something more than the friend of the everyday world!  Look for once straight into my eyes and know me!’

There was no doubtful ring in this; Annabel felt the chords of her being smitten to music.  She held her hand to him.

’You are my very near friend, and my life is richer for your influence.’

’I may come and see you again before very long, when I have something to tell you?’

‘You know that our house always welcomes you.’

He released her hand, and they walked homewards.  The sky was again overcast.  A fresh gust came from the fell-side and bore with it drops of rain.

‘We must hasten,’ Annabel said, in a changed voice.  ’Look at that magnificent cloud by the sun!’