"I don't, though I admit that my views about such matters are changing. You know I used to be sure that when we die everything is over with us. Now I think differently, why I cannot say."
Then the subject dropped, because really they were both wrapped in the great joy of a glorious hour and disinclined to dwell upon fancies about a woman who had died five hundred years ago, or on metaphysical speculations. Also the fear of what might follow upon that hour haunted them more vividly than any hovering ghost, if such there were.
"My dear," said Isobel, "I am sorry, but I must say it; I am sure that there will be trouble about this business."
"No doubt, Isobel; there always is trouble, at least where I am concerned; also one can't be happy without paying. But what does it matter so long as we stick to each other? Soon we shall both be of age and can do what we like."
"One always thinks that, Godfrey, and yet, somehow, one never can. Free will is a fraud in that sense as in every other."
"I have something, as you know, enough with my pay to enable us to get on, even if you were disinherited, dear, though, of course, you could not live as you have been accustomed to do."
"Oh! don't talk to me of money," she said impatiently, "though for the matter of that, I have something, too, a little that comes to me from my mother. Money won't divide us, Godfrey."
"Then what will, Isobel?"
"Nothing in the long run," she answered with conviction, "not even death itself, since in a way we are one and part of each other and therefore cannot be separated for always, whatever happens for a while, as I am sure that something will happen which will make you leave me."
"I swear that I will never leave you, I will die with you first," he exclaimed, springing up.
"Such oaths have been made often and broken--before the dawn," she answered, smiling and shaking her head.
"I swear that I will always love you," he went on.
"Ah! now I believe you, dear!" she broke in again. "However badly you may behave, you will always love me because you must."
"Well, and will you always love me however badly I behave?"
"Of course," she answered simply, "because I must. Oh! whatever we may hear about each other, we may be quite certain that we still love each other--because we must--and all your heaven and hell cannot make any difference, no, not if they were both to join forces and try their best. But that does not mean that necessarily we shall marry each other, for I think that people who love like that rarely do marry, because, you see, they would be too happy, which something is always trying to prevent. It may mean, however," she added reflectively, "that we shall not marry anybody else, though even that might happen in your case--not in mine. Always remember, Godfrey, that I shall never marry anybody else, not even if you took three wives one after the other."