She was deeply interested.  This was exactly as heros spoke in novels; they always had a lofty contempt for money, and talked as though love was the only and universal good.  She looked half shyly at him; he was very handsome, this young artist who loved her so, and very sad.  How dearly he loved her, and how strange it was!  In all this wide world there was not one who cared for her as he did; the thought seemed to bring her nearer to him.  No one had ever talked of loving her before.  Perhaps the beauty of the May evening softened her and inclined her heart to him; for after a few minutes’ silence she said to him: 

“We are forgetting the very object for which I consented to see you.”

CHAPTER VI.

“It is no wonder,” replied Allan Lyster.  “I forget everything in speaking to you.  You do well, lady, in making me remember myself.”

“Do not mistake me,” she said gently.  “I only thought time is flying, and I have not said yet what I promised your sister I would say.”

They had walked down the orchard, and they stood now under the spreading boughs of a large apple tree—­the pink and white blossoms made the loveliest frame for that most fair face.  She was lovely as the blossoms themselves.

“I feel like a criminal,” said Allan Lyster; “and as though you were my judge.  I tremble to know what you have to say.”

“Yet it is not very terrible, Mr. Lyster.  Your sister is my dearest friend, and she tells me that you are thinking of going abroad.  She is very miserable over it.  She fancies she should never see you again.  I promised her that I would persuade you to stay.”

His face flushed—­his eyes flashed—­he bent over her.

“See what little white hands yours are,” he said; “yet they hold a life—­a strong man’s life.  If you bade me stay, I would remain though death were the penalty.  If you bade me go, I would go and never look upon a familiar face again.”

“I do not like to say go, or stay,” she replied, hesitatingly.  “It is a serious thing to interfere with a man’s life.”

“I have dared already more than I ever dreamed of daring.  I have told how rashly I have ventured to raise my eyes to the sun—­you know my presumption.  I have dared to kneel at your feet, and tell you that you are the star of my idolatry, the source of all my inspiration.  You know that, yet you will not punish my presumption by telling me to go?”

“I will not,” she replied, gently.

“Then you are not angry with me?  I did not know life held such happiness as that.  You know I love you?  You are not angry?”

A sudden breeze stirred the apple blossoms, and they fell like a shower on her fair head.

“You must pardon me if I am beside myself with joy.  Looking on your face, I grow intoxicated with your beauty, as men do with rare wines.  Ah, lady! in the years to come and in the great world people may love you; but you shall look, and look in vain, for a love so true, so deep, so devoted as mine.”