There were no wrecks that day."
Sylvia turned to him, her face made tender by a smile, her dark eyes kind
and bright.
"Hilary!" she whispered. "Oh, Hilary!"
"Sylvia!" he replied, mimicking her tone. And Sylvia laughed with the
clear melodious note of happiness. All her old life was whirled away upon
those notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh of
contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek; her eyes once more
dropped to the still garden and the dark square house at the down's foot.
"There you asked me to marry you, to go away with you," she said, and she
caught his hand and held it close against her breast.
"Yes, there I first asked you," he said, and some distress, forgotten in
these first perfect moments, suddenly found voice. "Sylvia, why didn't
you come with me then? Oh, my dear, if you only had!"
But Sylvia's happiness was as yet too fresh, too loud at her throbbing
heart for her to mark the jarring note.
"I did not want to then," she replied lightly, and then tightening her
clasp upon his hand. "But now I do. Oh, Hilary, I do!"
"If only you had wanted then!"
Though he spoke low, the anguish of his voice was past mistaking. Sylvia
looked at him quickly and most anxiously; and as quickly she looked away.
"Oh, no," she whispered hurriedly.
Her happiness could not be so short-lived a thing.
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