To him, held
momentarily in this place that was like shoreless, open water, the
present was inestimably precious and it lay upon St. George like the
delicate claim of his love itself. What the next hour held for them
neither could know, and this universal uncertainty was for him
crystallized in an instant of high wisdom; over the little hand
lying so perilously near, his own closed suddenly and he crushed her
fingers to his lips.
"Olivia--dear heart," he said, "we don't know what they may do--what
will happen--oh, may I tell you _now_?"
There was no one to say that he might not, for the hand was not
withdrawn from his. And so he did tell her, told her all his heart
as he had known his heart to be that last night on _The Aloha_, and
in that divine twilight of his arriving on the island, and in those
hours beside the airy ramparts of the king's palace, and in the
vigil that followed, and always--always, ever since he could
remember, only that he hadn't known that he was waiting for her, and
now he knew--now he knew.
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