They 're going to ask him at the school meeting to-morrow , and offer him a raise of supplement . '' Upstairs , in his little room under the eaves , Eric Marshall was in the grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion he had ever experienced . Up and down , to and fro , he walked , with set lips and clenched hands . When he was wearied out he flung himself on a chair by the window and wrestled with the flood of feeling . Mrs. Williamson 's words had torn away the delusive veil with which he had bound his eyes . He was face to face with the knowledge that he loved Kilmeny Gordon with the love that comes but once , and is for all time . He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it . He knew that he must have loved her ever since their first meeting that May evening in the old orchard . And he knew that he must choose between two alternatives -- either he must never go to the orchard again , or he must go as an avowed lover to woo him a wife . Worldly prudence , his inheritance from a long line of thrifty , cool-headed ancestors , was strong in Eric , and he did not yield easily or speedily to the dictates of his passion . All night he struggled against the new emotions that threatened to sweep away the `` common sense '' which David Baker had bade him take with him when he went a-wooing . Would not a marriage with Kilmeny Gordon be an unwise thing from any standpoint ? Then something stronger and greater and more vital than wisdom or unwisdom rose up in him and mastered him . Kilmeny , beautiful , dumb Kilmeny was , as he had once involuntarily thought , `` the one maid '' for him . Nothing should part them . The mere idea of never seeing her again was so unbearable that he laughed at himself for having counted it a possible alternative . `` If I can win Kilmeny 's love I shall ask her to be my wife , '' he said , looking out of the window to the dark , southwestern hill beyond which lay his orchard . The velvet sky over it was still starry ; but the water of the harbour was beginning to grow silvery in the reflection of the dawn that was breaking in the east . `` Her misfortune will only make her dearer to me . I can not realize that a month ago I did not know her .
It seems to me that she has been a part XXXXX my life for ever .
If against by for of on out over than that