“I should have been ashamed of myself if I had asked the question.”

“And did you believe that I had a good motive—­a motive which you might yourself have appreciated—­for not telling you the name of that friend?”

“Is he some one whom I know?”

“Ought you to ask me that, after what I have just said?”

“Pray forgive me!  I spoke without thinking.”

“I can hardly believe it, when I remember how you spoke to me yesterday.  I could never have supposed, before we became acquainted with each other, that it was in the nature of a man to understand me so perfectly, to be so gentle and so considerate in feeling for my distress.  You confused me a little, I must own, by what you said afterward.  But I am not sure that ought to be severe in blaming you.  Sympathy—­I mean such sympathy as yours—­sometimes says more than discretion can always approve.  Have you not found it so yourself?”

“I have found it so with you.”

“And perhaps I have shown a little too plainly how dependent I am on you—­how dreadful it would be to me if I lost you too as a friend?”

She blushed as she said it.  When the words had escaped her, she felt that they might bear another meaning than the simple meaning which she had attached to them.  He took her hand; his doubts of himself, his needless fear of offending her, restrained him no longer.

“You can never lose me,” he said, “if you will only let me be the nearest friend that a woman can have.  Bear with me, dearest!  I ask for so much; I have so little to offer in return.  I dream of a life with you which is perhaps too perfectly happy to be enjoyed on earth.  And yet, I cannot resign my delusion.  Must my poor heart always long for happiness which is beyond my reach?  If an overruling Providence guides our course through this world, may we not sometimes hope for happier ends than our mortal eyes can see?”

He waited a moment—­and sighed—­and dropped her hand.  She hid her face; she knew what it would tell him:  she was ashamed to let him see it.

“I didn’t mean to distress you,” he said sadly.

She let him see her face.  For a moment only, she looked at him—­and then let silence tell him the rest.

His arms closed round her.  Slowly, the glory of the sun faded from the heavens, and the soft summer twilight fell over the earth.  “I can’t speak,” he whispered; “my happiness is too much for me.”

“Are you sure of your happiness?” she asked.

“Could I think as I am thinking now, if I were not sure of it?”

“Are you thinking of me?”

“Of you—­and of all that you will be to me in the future.  Oh, my angel, if God grants us many years to come, what a perfect life I see!”

“Tell me—­what do you see?”

“I see a husband and wife who are all in all to each other.  If friends come to us, we are glad to bid them welcome; but we are always happiest by ourselves.”