And hearing him pause:

"What task is that, Sir Crispin?" she asked, intent on helping
him.

He did not reply at once. He found it difficult to devise an
answer. To tell her brutally that he was come to bear her
away, willing or unwilling, on behalf of another, was not easy.
Indeed, it was impossible, and he was glad that inclinations in
her which he had little dreamt of, put the necessity aside.

"My task, Mistress Cynthia, is to bear you hence. To ask you
to resign this peaceful life, this quiet home in a little
corner of the world, and to go forth to bear life's hardships
with one who, whatever be his shortcomings, has the
all-redeeming virtue of loving you beyond aught else in life."

He gazed intently at her as he spoke, and her eyes fell before
his glance. He noted the warm, red blood suffusing her cheeks,
her brow, her very neck; and he could have laughed aloud for
joy at finding so simple that which he had feared would prove
so hard. Some pity, too, crept unaccountably into his stern
heart, fathered by the little faith which in his inmost soul he
reposed in Jocelyn. And where, had she resisted him, he would
have grown harsh and violent, her acquiescence struck the
weapons from his hands, and he caught himself well-nigh warning
her against accompanying him.

"It is much to ask," he said. "But love is selfish, and love
asks much."