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CHAPTER XXIX

How Miss Priscilla is driven to enter Coole – How she there receives an important proposal, but with much fortitude declines it – And how The Desmond suffers more from a twinge of conscience than from a bullet.

In the morning, a certain amount of constraint prevails with every one. Kit is, of course, aware of all that has happened, and of the day's expected visitor for Monica, who has refused to come down to breakfast, and who is as unsettled and miserable as she well can be. Kit has espoused her cause con amore, and is (I need hardly say) ready for open war at a moment's notice. She has indeed arranged a plan of action that will bring her on the battle-field at a critical moment to deliver a speech culled from some old novels in her room and meant to reduce both her aunts to annihilation.

When breakfast is over she disappears to study her part afresh, and the Misses Blake, too, separate and go to their own rooms, with an air of careful unconcern, that would not have imposed upon a one-year babe.

When again they reappear, they seem desirous of avoiding each other's glances, whereupon it occurs suddenly to everybody that they have both put on their very best silk gowns and lace caps, and have in fact got themselves up with elaborate care to receive – a Desmond! No wonder they are ashamed of themselves!

Still keeping up the outward symptoms of supreme indifference, they seat themselves in the drawing-room, Miss Penelope attacking her knitting with tremendous vigor, whilst Miss Priscilla gets apparently lost in the pages of "Temple Bar." Monica, sliding in presently like a small ghost, in her clinging white gown, slips into a seat in the window that overlooks the avenue, and hides herself and her pretty anxious face behind the lace curtains.

An hour glides by with aggravating slowness; and then a sound of wheels upon the gravel makes Monica's heart beat almost to suffocation. The two Misses Blake, suddenly forgetful of their role of unconcern, start from their seats and go to the window where Monica now is standing. A brougham and pair of horses drive up to the door, and a young man, opening the door, springs to the ground. It is Desmond.

"To come here in a close carriage!" says Miss Priscilla, with much contempt. "Is he afraid of catching cold, I wonder? I never heard of such foppery in my life."

"He is not a fop," says Monica, indignantly, and then she catches sight of her lover's face, and something in it awakes within her a prescience of coming evil.

Then the drawing-room door is thrown open with rather unceremonious haste, and the young man, entering, goes straight to where Miss Priscilla is standing, merely taking and holding Monica's hand as he reaches her, but addressing to her neither word nor look. He seems greatly agitated, and altogether unlike the man who stood here yesterday and almost defied them. His face is very pale, and full of honest grief and indignation.

"My uncle is at death's doors," he says in a voice that quivers with rage and excitement. "Coming home late last night he was shot at by some ruffians from behind the blackthorn hedge on the Coole road. He wants you Miss Blake" (to Priscilla). "He is asking for you. You will not refuse to come to a man who may be dying for all we know! I have brought the carriage for you, and I implore you not to delay, but to come to him at once."

Miss Priscilla has sunk into a chair, and is quite colorless; Miss Penelope clasps her hands.

"Oh, poor George!" she says, involuntarily, almost unconsciously. His present danger has killed remembrance of all the angry years that stand between to-day and the time when last she called him by his Christian name.

"When did it happen? How?" asks Monica, tightening her fingers round his, and trembling visibly.

"About ten o'clock last evening. Both Kelly and I were with him, and a groom. Two shots were fired. Kelly and I jumped off the dog-cart and gave chase and succeeded in securing one of them. There were four altogether, I think. We did not know my uncle was wounded when we ran after them, but when we came back we found Murray the groom holding him in his arms. He was quite insensible. I left Kelly and Murray to guard our prisoner, and drove my uncle home myself. He is very badly hurt. Miss Blake," turning again to Miss Priscilla, "you will come with me?"

"Oh, yes, yes," says Miss Priscilla, faintly.

"And I shall go with you, my dear Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, heroically. "Yes, you will want me. To find yourself face to face with him after all these years of estrangement and in so sad a state will be distressing. It is well I should be on the spot to lend you some support."

Miss Priscilla lays her hand on her arm.

"I think I shall go alone, Penelope," she says, falteringly. For one moment Miss Penelope is a little surprised, and then in another moment she is not surprised at all. But I believe in her heart she is a good deal disappointed: there is a flavor of romance and excitement about this expedition she would gladly have tasted.

"Well, perhaps it will be better so," she says, amiably. "I am glad he has sent for you. He will be the easier for your forgiveness, though he cannot obtain hers, now. Come upstairs: you should not keep Mr. Desmond waiting." There is a kindly light in her eyes as she glances at the young man. And then she takes Miss Priscilla away to her room, and helps her carefully with her toilet, and accepts the situation as a matter of course, though in her secret soul she is filled with amazement at The Desmond's sending for Miss Priscilla even though lying at death's door.

And indeed when the old man had turned to Brian and asked him to bring Miss Blake to Coole, Brian himself had known surprise too, and some misgivings. Was he going to make her swear never to give her consent to his (Brian's) marriage with her niece? or was he going to make open confession of that dishonorable action which caused Miss Blake's pretty stepsister to suffer dire tribulation, according to the gossips round?

"I should like to see Priscilla Blake," the old squire had said, in a low whisper, his nephew leaning over him to catch the words, and then he had muttered something about "old friends and forgiveness," that had not so easily been understood.

"You shall see her," the younger man says, tenderly. "I'll go for her myself. I am sure she won't refuse to come."

"Refuse!" There is something in the squire's whisper that puzzles Brian.

"I am certain she will not," he repeats, mechanically, whilst trying to translate it. But the look has faded from the old man's face, and his tone is different, when he speaks again.

"If she is afraid to come," he says, generously, having evidently settled some knotty point of inward discussion to his entire satisfaction, "tell her from me that I am ready and willing to forgive all."

"You mean you are anxious to obtain her forgiveness," says Brian, with the kindly intention of assisting the old man's wandering imagination.

"Eh?" says the squire, sharply. "What d'ye mean, Brian? Speak, lad, when I desire you."

"Look here, George! if you excite yourself like this, you know what the consequences will be," says Brian, sharply, in his turn. "I only meant that, as you – er – jilted their stepsister, I suppose you are anxious to obtain their pardon, now you feel yourself pretty low. But I'd advise you to wait and see about that when you have recovered your strength a little."

"And you believed that old story too!" says the poor squire, forlornly. "I didn't jilt her at all, Brian. It was she jilted me!"

"What!" says Brian, turning to see if the bullet had touched his brain instead of his ribs.

"'Tis true. I tell you, that girl broke my heart. She was the prettiest creature I ever saw, with soft dove's eyes, and a heavenly smile, and no more heart than that," striking the post of the old-fashioned bedstead with his uninjured arm. "I gave myself up to her, I worshipped the very ground she walked on, and within a fortnight of our wedding she calmly wrote to tell me she could not marry me!"

"Giving a reason?"

"No. Even she, I presume, could not summon sufficient courage to tell the wretch she had deluded of her love for another. She gave me no reason. She entreated me, however, to keep silence about the real author of the breach between us, – that is, herself. I was the one to break off our engagement! I was to bear all the blame! She implored me to conceal her share in it, and finally demanded of me, as a last favor, that I would give the world to understand I had thrown her over."

"A charmingly disinterested specimen of womankind," says Brian, raising his brows.

"And this to me," says The Desmond, an indignant sob making his weak voice weaker, – "a man who had always kept himself straight in the eyes of the world. I was required to represent myself as a low, despicable fellow, one of those who seek a woman's affections only to ignore them at the sight of the next pretty face."

"But you refused to comply with her request?" says Brian, hastily.

"No, sir, I didn't," says the squire, shame struggling with his excitement. "On the contrary, I gave in to her in every respect. I believe at that time I would cheerfully have allowed myself to be branded as a thief if she had desired it and if it would have saved her one scrap of discomfort. She was afraid of her sisters, you see. I blamed them then, Brian, but I think now her fear of them arose from the fact that they were as true as she was – Well, well!"

"This is indeed a revelation," says Brian.

"Yes; you wouldn't think they would behave like that, would you?" says Mr. Desmond, eagerly.

"Who? The Misses Blake?" says Brian, startled.

"Yes. It wasn't like them to keep silent all these years, and let me bear the brunt of the battle, when they knew I was innocent and that it was their own flesh and blood who was in fault. Yet they turned their backs upon me, and have treated me ever since as though I were in reality the miscreant they have succeeded in making me out."

"There is a terrible mistake somewhere," says Brian. "They do verily believe you to be the miscreant you describe."

"Brian, come here!" says the old man, in an ominously calm tone. "Do you mean to tell me Priscilla Blake believes me guilty of having behaved dishonestly to her sister Katherine? You positively think this?"

"I know it," says Brian, who feels it is better to get out the plain unvarnished truth at once.

"You have no doubt? Think, Brian; think."

"I needn't. – There is no doubt on my mind."

"Then she deceived us all," says the squire, in a stricken tone. Then he roused himself again. He seems to have recovered his strength wonderfully during the past hour. "Go, get me Priscilla Blake," he says. "Hurry, boy! hurry! I must make it right with her before I die."

"Before you recover, you mean," says Brian, cheerily. "There! lie down now, and keep yourself quiet, or you won't be looking your best when she comes."

And now Miss Priscilla has come, and is standing beside the bed of her quondam friend, looking down upon him with dim eyes.

"I am sorry to meet you again like this, George Desmond," she says, at last, in tones meant to be full of relentless displeasure, but which falter strangely.

"She made as great a fool of you as of me, Priscilla," is the squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought, – the treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all comes out, and the letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and forgotten in a foreign land.

"Oh, I wouldn't have believed it of her!" says Miss Priscilla, weeping bitterly. "But there must have been something wrong with her always, though we could never see it. What an angel face she had! But the children, they speak terribly of her, and they say – that she – and James Beresford – did not get on at all."

"Eh?" says the squire. He rises himself on his sound elbow, and quite a glow of color rushes into his pallid cheeks. When, with a groan of self-contempt, he sinks back again, and the light in his eye (was it of satisfaction?) dies.

"You have met Brian," he says presently. "What do you think of him, Priscilla? He is a good lad, – a very good lad."

"He looks it," says Miss Priscilla, shortly.

"He does," heartily. "Well, I'm told this boy of mine is in love with your girl."

"Who told you?" says Miss Priscilla.

"Brian himself," says the Squire.

"I like that in him," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, George, if you will look upon that as settled, so shall I."

"So be it," says the squire – "Eh, my dear? but doesn't it make us feel old to be discussing the love-affairs of these young things, when it seems only yesterday that we – that you and I, Priscilla – "

"That is all buried long ago: don't rake it up. It died when first your eyes fell on her," says Miss Blake, hurriedly.

"I was a fool," says the squire. "But, somehow, since I have been talking to you, I don't think I'm going to die this time, and old scenes came back to me, and – I suppose it is too late now, Priscilla?"

There is no mistaking his meaning.

"Oh, yes; a whole lifetime too late," says Miss Priscilla, with a soft, faint blush that would not have misbecome a maiden in her teens. "But I am glad we are friends again, George."

She pressed his hand with real affection, and then colors again warmly, as though afraid of having discovered herself in the act of committing an indiscretion. Could that gentle pressure be called forward, or light, or unseemly? Terrible thought!

"So am I, my dear," says the squire. And then again, "You won't think of it, then, Priscilla?"

"No, no," says Miss Blake, feeling flattered at his persistence, and then she actually laughs out loud, and The Desmond laughs too, though feebly; and then the doctor comes in again, and Miss Priscilla goes home, to tell Miss Penelope, in the secrecy of her chamber, and with the solemnity that befits the occasion, all about the squire's proposal, its reception, and its rejection.

Be assured no minutest detail is forgotten; Miss Penelope is soon in possession of every smallest look and word connected with it, and deeply gratifying is the manner in which the great news is received by that gentle maiden.

"Though late in the day, Penelope," says Miss Priscilla, as a sort of wind-up to her recital, "it was an offer of marriage any woman might be proud of, be she young or old; and he meant it, too. He was quite pressing. Twice he asked me, although my first was a most decided 'No.'"

"It seems terrible, your having been so cold to him, poor fellow!" says Miss Penelope, with a regretful sigh for the griefs of the rejected Desmond.

"What could I do?" says Miss Priscilla, with an air of self-defence. This thought, that she can actually be accused of having treated the sterner sex in a hardhearted fashion, is cakes and ale to her.

"We must not talk of this, Penelope," she says, presently. "It would be unfair. It must never transpire through us that George Desmond laid his heart and fortune at my feet only to be rejected."

To her these old-world phrases sound grand and musical and full of fire and sentiment.

"No, no," says Miss Penelope, acquiescing freely, yet with a sigh; she would have dearly liked to tell her gossips of this honor that has been done her dear Priscilla. And, after all, she has her wish, for the story gets about, spread by the hero of it himself.

The squire, tired, no doubt, of keeping secrets, and perhaps (but this in a whisper) grateful to her because of her refusal, goes about everywhere, and tells people far and near of his offer; so that when their friends flock to Moyne, and, giving The Desmond as their authority for it, accuse Miss Priscilla of her refusal, and she still, with maidenly modesty, parries their questions, Miss Penelope, feeling herself absolved from further reticence, comes to the front and gives them a full and true account of the wonderful event.

"Yes, Priscilla might indeed have reigned as queen at Coole had she so wished it, and well graced the position too," winds up Miss Penelope, on all these occasions, with much pride and dignity.

Brian, who had been busy all the morning swearing informations, and so forth, with Mr. Kelly and the groom, before magistrates and others, coming into his uncle's room about half an hour after Miss Blake's departure, finds him considerably better both in mind and in body, though feeble in spirit, as is only natural. Indeed, the bullet had done him little harm, causing merely a flesh-wound, but the shock had been severe to a man of his years.

"Come here, Brian; I want to tell you something," he says, as the young man leans over him.

"You are not to talk," says his nephew, peremptorily.

"If you won't listen to me, I'll send for Bailey, the steward," says the squire. "Nonsense! it does me good." And then he tells him all the particulars of Miss Priscilla's visit relating to his engagement with Katherine Beresford, with one reservation.

"It is all right between us now," he says, in a pleased tone. "She told me everything, and it appears we were both sadly taken in, though I don't wish to say anything against her even now. I daresay she had her own grievances, poor soul; and indeed Priscilla said – "

Here he pauses, and a guilty flush covers his pale face. He hesitates, and then beckons Brian to come even nearer.

"Look you, lad! I'm not quite at ease even yet. There's something wrong here!" laying his hand upon his heart.

"Is it pain?" asks his nephew, anxiously. "I told you you were talk – "

"No, no, boy. It's only mental pain. I want to be ashamed of myself, and I can't. I'm feeling a satisfaction about something that I shouldn't. It's not right, Brian. It's not a gentlemanly feeling, but I can't curb it. The more I think of it, the more pleased I feel. Eh? You don't look as if you understood me."

"I don't, much," confesses Brian, seating himself on the edge of the bed. "You see, you haven't told me what it is all about."

"It is about Katherine Beresford. Priscilla told me, and I should like to tell you. I say, Brian, you won't throw it in my teeth, now, when I'm better, eh?"

"I swear I won't," says Brian.

"Well, she told me Katherine had a regular devil of a life with her husband, and I'm glad of it! There!" says the squire; after which disgraceful confession he regularly scrambles under the bedclothes, with a view to hiding his shame and his exultation from public view.

Brian fairly roars with laughter. At the sound of his welcome mirth, the old man slowly emerges from the sheets again, and looks at him doubtfully, but with growing hope.

"She had the best of it, of course; any one would have the best of it with James Beresford," he says. "But she couldn't have been altogether comfortable; that's what I mean. I don't want you to think I should rejoice at her having received bad treatment at her husband's hands. He had all the bad treatment to himself, I expect."

"So do I," says Brian, who is laughing still.

"And you don't think so badly of me for it?" says the Squire, anxiously.

"Not I," says Brian.

"Still, it's rather a mean sort of feeling, isn't it, now? It's very low – eh?"

"Low or not," says Brian, with decision, "I'm perfectly certain if it was my case I should feel just like that myself."

"You're the comfort of my life, Brian," says his uncle, gratefully; and then he indulges in a covert smile himself, after which he drops off into a slumber, sound and refreshing.

CHAPTER XXX

How Madam O'Connor gives her opinion on certain subjects – How Fay electrifies an entire audience – And how Olga makes up her mind.

It is growing towards evening, and as yet at Aghyohillbeg they have not grown tired of discussing the terrible event of last night.

"When I called just now, Priscilla Blake was with him," says Madam O'Connor. "Brian told me The Desmond had sent for her. I suppose the old quarrel about Katherine will be patched up now, and I shouldn't wonder if our two lovers, Monica and Brian, get married quite comfortably and in the odor of sanctity, after all."

"I suppose they couldn't have managed it without the old people's consent," says Mrs. Herrick, who is rocking herself lazily to and fro in a huge American chair.

"Nonsense, my dear!" says Madam, throwing up her chin. "Accredit them with some decent spirit, I beg of you. Of course they would have got married whether or not, – there is nothing like opposition for that kind of thing, and no doubt would have enjoyed it all the more for the fun of the thing, because there must be an excitement in a runaway match unknown to the orthodox affair."

"I don't think I should like to run away," says Olga Bohun; "there is always a difficulty about one's clothes."

"What's the good of being in love if you can't get over a few paltry obstacles?" says Madam, whose heart is still young. "Well, I expect we shall have a gay wedding here before long, and be able to give that pretty child our presents without any trouble."

"How long the day has been!" says Olga, with a little affected yawn, meant to reduce Ulic Ronayne to despair, who is sitting in a distant window touching up one of her paintings. "I don't know when I have been so bored, – no one to speak to. Madam, darling, you shall never go out again without me; remember that. Nobody has called, – I suppose they are afraid of being shot, – not even Owen Kelly; and one would like to see him and Brian, to make sure they are all there."

"Talk of somebody," says Madam, looking out of the window, "here comes Owen."

As Olga puts her hand in his presently, she says, laughing, —

"Madam O'Connor says you are, in polite language, his sable majesty himself. So you must be, to escape as you did last night. Now tell us all about it. We have heard so many garbled accounts that a real one will set our minds at rest."

Then he tells them all about it, dropping as though unconsciously into a low chair very close to Hermia's.

"So, you see," he says, when he had finished, "it might have been a very sensational affair, and covered us all with glory, only it didn't."

"I think it did," says Mrs. Herrick, gently. She doesn't raise her eyes from her work to say this, but knits calmly on; only a very careful observer could have noticed the faint trembling of her fingers, or the quivering of her long, downcast lashes.

"How can you say such a thing, Owen?" says Olga. "Look at all the cases we have known where the assassins have got away quite free, and here we have the principal secured."

"Yes, that was very clever of Brian," says Mr. Kelly.

"Did he capture him, then, single-handed? Were not you with him? Were you in no danger of your life, too?" exclaims Hermia, with such unwonted animation that every one looks at her. She takes no notice of their regard, but fixes her kindling eyes on Kelly, who, in returning her mute protest, forgets that any other more open answer may be required of him. Then she lets her eyes fall from his, and her face grows calm and statuesque again, and only the rapid clicking of her needles show the perturbation of the mind within.

"Did the fellow give you much trouble, Kelly?" asks Ronayne, who in his secret soul is bitterly regretful he had not been on the scene of action.

"Not he, the fool!" says Mr. Kelly, with something approaching a smile. "Brian fired his revolver and grazed his arm slightly, – a mere scratch, you will understand, – and the miserable creature rolled upon the ground, doubled himself in two, and, giving himself up as dead, howled dismally. Not knowing at that time that the poor squire was hurt, Brian and I roared with laughter: we couldn't help it, the fellow looked so absurd."

They all laugh at this, but presently Olga, holding up her finger, says, seriously, —

"Owen, recollect yourself. You said you laughed. Oh! it can't be true."

"I regret to say it is," says Mr. Kelly, with intensest self-abasement. "For once I forgot myself; I really did do it; but it shan't occur again. The exquisite humor of the moment was too much for me. I hope it won't be placed to my account, and that in time you will all forgive me my one little lapse."

"Well, Owen, you are the drollest creature," says Madam O'Connor, with a broad sweet smile, that is copied by Olga and Ronayne. Mrs. Herrick remains unmoved, and her needles go faster and faster: Mr. Kelly stares at them uneasily.

"They'll give out sparks in another minute or so," he says, warningly, "and if they do there will be a general conflagration. Spare me that: I have had enough excitement for a while."

Mrs. Herrick lets her knitting fall into her lap.

"The squire may be thankful he got off so easily," says Madam O'Connor at this moment.

"He may, indeed," says Kelly. "Fay," to the child who is standing at a distance gazing thoughtfully with uplifted head at the blue sky without, "what are you wondering about now?"

The child turns upon him her large blue eyes, blue as Nankin china, and answers him in clear sweet tones, indifferent to the fact that every one in the room is regarding her.

"I was wondering," she says, truthfully, "why Ulic says his prayers to Olga."

A most disconcerting silence follows this speech. Madam hums a tune; Mrs. Herrick loses herself in her knitting; but Mr. Kelly, who is always alive, says "Eh?"

"I saw him," says Fay, dreamily.

Olga, who is as crimson as the heart of a red rose, makes here a frantic but subdued effort to attract the child's attention; Mr. Kelly, however, gets her adroitly on to his knees before she can grasp the meaning of Olga's secret signals.

"Where did you see him?" he says, mildly.

"In the summer-house, this morning. He was kneeling down before her, just as I kneel to mamma, and he had his head in her lap, and he was whispering his prayers. I could not hear what he said." At this instant an expression of the most devout thankfulness overspreads Mrs. Bohun's features. "But they were very long prayers; and I think he was sorry for something he had done."

"I haven't a doubt of it," says Mr. Kelly, mournfully. "Go on, my child."

"I'm not your child; I'm mamma's," says Fay, firmly; but, having so far vindicated her mother's character, she goes on with her tale: "When he got up he didn't look a bit better," she says. "He looked worse, I think. Didn't you, Ulic?" addressing the stricken young man in the window. "And I always thought it was only children who said their prayers to people, and not the grown-up ones. And why did he choose Olga? Wasn't there mamma? And wasn't there Madam? You would have let him say his prayers to you, Madam, wouldn't you?" turning placidly to her hostess.

"I should have been only too charmed, – too highly flattered," says Madam, in a stifled tone; and then she gives way altogether, and breaks into a gay and hearty laugh, under cover of which Olga beats an ignominious retreat.

Mr. Ronayne, feeling rather than seeing that his colleague in this disgraceful affair has taken flight, puts down his brushes softly and jumps lightly from the open window to the grass beneath. Then with a speed that belongs to his long limbs, he hurries towards that corner of the house that will lead him to the hall door: as he turns it, he received Olga almost in his arms.

"You here?" she says. "Oh, that terrible child!"

"She didn't understand, poor little soul." And then, as though the recollection overcomes him, he gives away to uncontrollable mirth.

"Such unseemly levity!" says Mrs. Bohun, in a disgusted tone; but, after the vaguest hesitation, she laughs too.

"Come to the orchard," says Ronayne; and to the orchard they go. Here, finding a rustic seat at the foot of a gnarled and moss-grown apple-tree, they take possession of it.

"It is very unfortunate," says Olga, with a sigh. Her fair hair is being blown like a silver cloud hither and thither and renders her distractingly pretty.

"You mean our betrayal by that child?"

"Yes. I hope it will cure you of ever being so silly as to go on your knees to any woman again."

"I shall never go on my knees to any woman but you, whether you accept or reject me."

"I am sure I don't know how I am ever to face those people inside again." Here she puts one dainty little finger to her lips and bites it cruelly.

"There is nothing remarkable in having one's accepted lover at one's feet."

"But you are not that," she says, lifting her brows and seeming half amused at his boldness.

"By one word you can make me so."

"Can I? What is the word?"

This is puzzling; but Mr. Ronayne, nothing daunted says, —

"You have only to say, 'you are,' and I am."

"It isn't Christmas yet," says Mrs. Bohun: "you shouldn't throw conundrums at me out of season. It is too much? 'you are and I am.' I couldn't guess it, indeed; I'm anything but clever."

"If you say the 'I will,' you will find the solution to our conundrum at once."

"But that is two words."

"Olga, does the fact that I love you carry no weight with it at all."

"But do you love me —really?"

"Need I answer that?"

"But there are others, younger, prettier."

"Nonsense! There is no one prettier than you in this wide world."

"Ah!" with a charming smile, "now indeed I believe you do love me, for the Greek Cupid is blind. What a silly boy you are to urge this matter! For one thing I am older than you."

"A year or two."

"For another – "

"I will not listen. 'Stony limits cannot hold love out:' why, therefore, try to discourage me?"

"But you should think – "

"I think only that if you will say what I ask you, I shall be always with you, and you with me."

"What is your joy is my fear. Custom creates weariness! And – 'the lover in the husband may be lost!'"

"Ah! you have thought of me in that light," exclaims the young man, eagerly. "Beloved if you will only take me, you shall find in me both a lover and husband until your life's end."

The smile has died from Olga's lips; she holds out her hands to him.