instinct of her heart was a tender, sensitive tendril of affection, and all these soft and growing tendrils reaching out in the loneliness of her life had clung even to William Pressley, as a fine young vine will twine round a hard cold rock when it can reach nothing softer or warmer or higher.  Her own rich, warm, loving nature had indeed so wreathed his coldness and hardness that she could not see him as he really was.  And now—­without any change in either the vine or the rock—­everything was wholly different.  It was as if a tropical storm had suddenly lifted all these clinging tendrils away from the unresponsive rock and had borne them heavenward into the eager arms of a living oak.

She knew now the difference between the love that a loving nature gives to all, and the love which a strong nature gives to only one.  Her heart was beating so under this new, deep knowledge of life, that she feared lest the man whom she loved might hear.  Yet she sat still with her little hands tightly clasped on her lap, as if to hold herself firm, and she held herself from looking round, though the silence continued unbroken.  William must be told before she might listen to the words which she so longed to hear from Paul’s lips.  It was noble of him to hold them back.  Every moment that she had been sitting by the hearth she had been expecting to hear them.  So that she sat now in tense, quivering suspense, waiting, fearing, longing, dreading, through this strange, long silence; filled only by the sighing of the wind-harp and the crackling of the fire.  And then, being a true woman, she could endure it no longer, and turning slightly she gave him a shy, timid glance.  As she looked she cried out in terror.

His head, which had been so eagerly raised a moment before, had fallen; his eyes, which had been aglow but an instant since, were closed.  The effort, the agitation, had been too great for his slight strength.  The strong spirit, impatient of the weak flesh, was again slipping away from it.

She thought he was dying, and forgetting everything but her love for him, she flew to him and fell on her knees by his side.  Raising his heavy head in her arms she held it against her bosom.  She did not know that her lips touched his, she was seeking only to learn if he breathed.  When his eyes opened blankly, she kissed them till they closed again, because she could not bear to see the dreadful blankness that was in them.  When he moaned she fell to rocking gently back and forth, holding his head closer against her breast, and presently began to croon softly.  She never once thought of calling for help; it was to her as if there had been no one but themselves in the whole world.  And presently his faintness passed away, and when his arms, so weakly raised, went round her, she did not try to escape.  After a little he found strength to speak a part of all that was in his heart, and she told him what she could of all that was in hers.  And both spoke as a great love speaks when it first turns slowly back from facing death.