your letters went away. Oh—surely I have known it always, though I didn’t understand. Oh, Guy! there was only you for me and me for you since God made us. Guy—my own dear one!”
“No!” said Randal. “I can’t; I am not worthy!”
She came to him, standing with her hands linked, and her grave dark eyes on his.
“You have no choice, Guy,” she said simply. “And I have not any, either. I have been a child always. Now I am a woman, for I know what love means. It is very terrible, Guy, and it frightens me, because it has taken everything out of the earth but God and you. Guy—help me! For love is too big for a girl to bear it by herself!”
Her voice broke, and her hands came over her face. And, by the loss of the child-frankness of old, Randal understood, Effie had come into her woman’s heritage that was to be his also.
