Part 3 (2/2)

Then good-night, Gilbert. Until to-morrow!

GILBERT.

No, Jane, wait a moment. Heaven! how it hurts me to leave you, even for a few hours. How true it is that you are my life and my joy. Yet I have to work--we are so poor. I won't go in, because I should stay; and yet I can't leave you, weak man that I am. Let us sit down by the door a few moments, on this bench. I think it will be easier to go from here than if I went into the house, and, above all, into your room. Give me your hand.

[_He sits and takes her hands in his; she stands._

Jane, do you love me?

JANE.

Oh, I owe you everything, Gilbert. I know it, although you have concealed it from me a long time! When I was little, almost in my cradle, my parents abandoned me, and you took me. For sixteen years your hand has worked for me as if you were a father; your eyes have watched over me like a mother. What would I be without you, just Heaven! All I have, you have given me; all I am, you have made me.

GILBERT.

Jane, do you love me?

JANE.

What devotion yours has been, Gilbert! You work for me, night and day; you wear your eyes out, you kill yourself for me. You are going to sit up all night again to-night. And never a reproach to me, never an unkindness, never an angry word! You are very poor, yet you remember all my small womanly vanities; you gratify them. Gilbert, whenever I think about you, my eyes fill with tears. You have often gone without bread; I have never gone without my ribbons.

GILBERT.

Jane, do you love me?

JANE.

Gilbert, I would like to kneel down and kiss your feet.

GILBERT.

Do you love me, do you love me? All that does not prove that you love me. I want that word, Jane! Grat.i.tude, always grat.i.tude! Oh, I stamp it underfoot, your grat.i.tude. I want love or nothing! Die! Jane, you have been my daughter for sixteen years; now you are to be my wife. I adopted you; now I am to marry you--in one week. You know, you promised me; you have consented; you are my betrothed. You loved me when you promised that. Oh, Jane, there was a time--do you remember it?--when you told me, ”I love you,” and you lifted your sweet eyes to heaven. That is the way I want you to be. For some months now, you have seemed different, especially during these last three weeks that my work has kept me away from here nights. Jane, I must have you love me! I am used to it. You were always so light-hearted; now you are sad and absent-minded--not cold, my poor child (you try your best not to be), but I feel your loving words do not come as tenderly and as naturally as they used. What is the matter? Don't you love me any more? I know I am an honest man, I know I am a good workman; but I would rather be a robber and an a.s.sa.s.sin, and be loved by you. Jane, if you knew how much I love you!

JANE.

I know it, Gilbert, and it makes me weep.

GILBERT.

For joy, isn't it? Say it is for joy! Oh, I need to believe it. There is only that in the world--to be loved. I have only a poor workingman's heart, but my Jane must love me. Why do you always talk to me about what I have done for you? One single word of love from you puts all the grat.i.tude on my side. I will d.a.m.n myself and commit a crime, whenever you wish it. You will be my wife, won't you, and you love me? Oh, Jane, for one look of your eyes I would give my work and my labor; for one smile, my life; for one kiss, my soul.

JANE.

What a n.o.ble heart you have, Gilbert.

GILBERT.

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