What matter that he was fortuneless, a nobody, with but the poorest
chances of success in the world? What if he must needs, only to win the
bare means of existence, go to Australia and keep sheep, or to the Bed
River valley and grow corn? What if he must labour, as the peasants
laboured on the sides of this rude hill? Gladly would she go with him to
a strange country, and keep his log cabin, and work for him, and share
his toilsome life, rough or smooth. No loss of social rank could lessen
her pride in him, her belief in him.

They were standing side by side a little way from the edge of the sheer
descent, below which the Bed Tarn showed black in a basin scooped out of
the naked hill, like water held in the hollow of a giant's hand.

'Look,' cried Mary, pointing downward, 'you must see the Red Tarn, the
highest water in England?'

But just at this moment there came a blast which shook even Hammond's
strong frame, and with a cry of fear he snatched Mary in his arms and
carried her away from the edge of the hill. He folded her in his arms
and held her there, thirty yards away from the precipice, safely
sheltered against his breast, while the wind raved round them, blowing
her hair from the broad, white brow, and showing him that noble forehead
in all its power and beauty; while the darkness deepened round them so
that they could see hardly anything except each other's eyes.

'My love, my own dear love,' he murmured fondly; 'I will trust you with
my life. Will you accept the trust? I am hardly worthy; for less than a
year ago I offered myself to your sister, and I thought she was the only
woman in this wide world who could make me happy. And when she refused