He sat up and looked blankly out of the window.

“You do love me, don’t you?” she asked calmly.

He looked down at her.

“Tha knows what tha knows. What dost ax for!” he said, a little fretfully.

“I want you to keep me, not to let me go,” she said.

His eyes seemed full of a warm, soft darkness that could not think.

“When? Now?”

“Now in your heart. Then I want to come and live with you always, soon.”

He sat naked on the bed, with his head dropped, unable to think.

“Don’t you want it,” she asked.