“How blessed, how surely blessed I am in hearing you,” he breathed, in a low and reverent tone.

“Afterward I saw your portrait in Malcolm’s Tower at Lone,” she continued, in a soft voice.  “And I saw a beauty and a grandeur in the face and form that seemed the fitting manifestation of a soul like yours.  And I loved you more than ever.  My mornings were passed in the tower near the glory of that picture.  But I gazed on it so hopelessly!  You were missing, you were lost to your world!  And then I was so plain, so pale, and dark and gray-eyed.  If I should ever be so fortunate as to meet you, I thought you would never be likely to love me!”

“My consolation!  You are most lovely from your spirit, and now you know that I loved you from my first meeting with you,” he breathed, in a low, earnest tone, pouring his whole soul’s devotion through the gaze that he fixed on her face.

Again her eyes drooped as she murmured: 

“If I am lovely in the very least, it must be that my love for you has made me so; for, even then, when I had only heard your story and seen your portrait, I loved you so, that I could not think of marriage with any other man.”

“And that was the reason why you refused so many excellent offers?” he inquired, with a smile.

“Perhaps that was the reason,” she replied, lowly bending her head.

“Tell me more, my consolation!  I thirst for your words; they are as the words of life to me,” he murmured, eagerly.

She continued, still speaking in a low, thrilling voice: 

“At last—­at last—­at last—­after three long years of waiting, longing, aspiring, I met you face to face.  Oh!” she exclaimed, and as she spoke her hand for the first time went out to meet his, which closed upon it with a close clasp, and her eyes lifted themselves to his in a full blaze of love that seemed to blend their spirits into one.

“Oh! if in that moment you loved me, it must have been because you read my soul, for in that moment I consecrated my life to you for acceptance or rejection.  I recorded a vow in heaven to be no man’s wife unless I could be yours; but to live unmarried so that when, in the course of nature, my dear father should pass to the higher life and leave me Castle Lone, I might be free to transfer it to its rightful owner.”

“Ah! my beloved! you would have been capable of such an act of renunciation as that!  But I could not have accepted the sacrifice, Salome.”

“In that case I should have made a will and bequeathed it to you, and then prayed to the Lord to take me from the earth, that you might have it all the sooner.  But let that pass.  Thanks be to Heaven, there is no need of that.  It would have been sweet to die for you, but it is so much sweeter to live for you, dearest!” she said, lifting up a face in which rosy blushes, radiant smiles, and beaming eyes were blended in dazzling beauty.