"I've thought about that too," Herminia answered, still firm to her

principles. "I've thought it all over. I've said to myself, Shall

I do right in monopolizing him, when he is so great, and sweet, and

true, and generous? Not monopolizing, of course, for that would be

wrong and selfish; but making you my own more than any other

woman's. And I answered my own heart, Yes, yes, I shall do right

to accept him, if he asks me; for I love him, that is enough. The

thrill within me tells me so. Nature put that thrill in our souls

to cry out to us with a clear voice when we had met the soul she

then and there intended for us."

Alan's face flushed like her own. "Then you love me," he cried,

all on fire. "And you deign to tell me so; Oh, Herminia, how sweet

you are. What have I done to deserve it?"

He folded her in his arms. Her bosom throbbed on his. Their lips

met for a second. Herminia took his kiss with sweet submission,

and made no faint pretence of fighting against it. Her heart was

full. She quickened to the finger-tips.

There was silence for a minute or two,--the silence when soul

speaks direct to soul through the vehicle of touch, the

mother-tongue of the affections. Then Alan leaned back once more,

and hanging over her in a rapture murmured in soft low tones, "So

Herminia, you will be mine! You say beforehand you will take me."

"Not WILL be yours," Herminia corrected in that silvery voice of

hers. "AM yours already, Alan. I somehow feel as if I had always

been yours. I am yours this moment. You may do what you would

with me."

She said it so simply, so purely, so naturally, with all the

supreme faith of the good woman, enamoured, who can yield herself

up without blame to the man who loves her, that it hardly even

occurred to Alan's mind to wonder at her self-surrender. Yet he

drew back all the same in a sudden little crisis of doubt and

uncertainty. He scarcely realized what she meant. "Then,

dearest," he cried tentatively, "how soon may we be married?"

At sound of those unexpected words from such lips as his, a flush

of shame and horror overspread Herminia's cheek. "Never!" she

cried firmly, drawing away. "Oh, Alan, what can you mean by it?

Don't tell me, after all I've tried to make you feel and

understand, you thought I could possibly consent to MARRY you?"




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