CHAPTER XXXV
BEING THE SHORTEST IN THIS BOOK
Sunset had long since paled its splendour; evening was fading into night, a warm and languorous twilight where stars peeped and a waxing radiance gave promise of a moon, while from wood remote, vague, mysterious stole the bubbling murmur of a night-jar.
And my Lady Herminia, having crossed the little footbridge that spanned whispering stream, paused to lean upon the adjacent stile, viewing all things tender-eyed, from the homely lights of Alfriston, twinkling here and there beyond dim-seen trees, to the far-flung majesty of the swelling, silent Downs beyond. Yet, it is to be supposed, she was by no means unconscious of him who stood beside her, though she started when at last he spoke.
“This,” said Sir John, “is the stile beyond the little footbridge.”
“Well?” she inquired, a little breathlessly.
“Won’t you say ‘John’?”
“Well, John?” she repeated obediently.
“And it is an aged stile, Rose. See how warped are its timbers. And consequently ’tis very like that many a man hath kissed his maid here.... Say ‘Yes, John.’”
“Yes, John.”
“And yet, Rose, as I do think, none of them all ever kissed with such reverent fervour as we are about to do.... Say ‘Never in all the world, John!’”
“Nay ... oh, wait!” she cried more breathlessly than ever.
“Indeed, I am in no haste,” he answered. “But here to-night, Rose, thou and I that so love each other, do plight our troth....”
“Art sure I love thee, then?” she questioned.
“’Tis so I have dared dream, child.”
“And how if I—do not?”
“Then is the sun out and I lost i’ the dark.”
“Art so—very assured?” she questioned again; and then his arms were about her and he drew her close, lifting her unwilling head that he might look into her eyes.
“O loved maid!” he murmured. “Sweet Flower o’ Life, thou and I are alone here with the God that made us and yon everlasting hills.... Could thine eyes speak me aught but truth? Are these the eyes of Rose or the Lady Herminia?”
“Of ... Rose!” she whispered. And so he kissed her, her eyes, her hair, her lips, until at last: “O John,” she murmured, “art thou John Derwent or ... the ‘Wicked Dering’? For indeed ... Aunt Lucinda said but three, sir!”