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 "We're wasting time. I know—I feel as you do—that it's going to be all right, but however he fails with you he can carry me off somewhere, and so it is very likely that I don't see either of you again for some time. And if that's so—if that's so, I just want to say that you've been the finest men in the world to me.

"And I want you to know that whatever turns up for me now—yes, whatever it is—it can't be as bad as it was before yesterday. I can't ever again be as unhappy as I was now that I've known both of you as I've known you this night.

"I didn't realise, David, how I felt about you until Mr. Harkness showed me. I've been so selfish all these years, and I suppose I shall go on being selfish, because one doesn't change all in a minute, but at least I've got the two best friends a woman ever had."

"Hesther," Dunbar said, turning towards her, "if we get free of this and you can get rid of that man—I ask you as I've asked you every week for the last ten years—will you marry me?"

"Yes," she said. But for the moment she turned to Harkness. He was looking through the bars out to the sky where the mist was now very faintly rose like the coloured smoke of far distant fire. She put her hand on his shoulder, keeping her other hand in Dunbar's.

"I don't know why you said you were so much