“‘Heraine, you have a pleasant letter there.’

“She only blushed very much, and all her quietness was gone for a moment.

“As the months expanded into years, a new feeling engendered from our intimacy.  I did not comprehend it at first.  It crept upon me like the unfolding of a new sense, or the gradual realizing of the earliest profound thought.  An unexpected event gave it recognition.

“The boldly-indorsed letters came twice a month at first, afterward four times, and finally twice, thrice, and even five times a week.  Heraine was quick and flushed.  She passed but two or three hours daily in my apartment, and substituted for the embroidery a dress of such bright hues that it dazzled my eyes.  One day she took her accustomed seat, with a face subdued to sadness and an irresolute manner.

“‘Luke,’ she said, after a long pause, ’we have passed many days pleasantly together?’

“She did not wait for me to speak, though I thrilled and turned deadly white.

“‘And because so pleasantly, I contemplate my farewell with regret.’

“‘Your farewell, Heraine?’

“‘Yes,’ she said firmly; ’to-day—­this afternoon—­this hour—­I bid adieu to Glengoyle!’

“I fell forward in my seat, forcing down my heart, which sobbed and swelled, and the whole world rang, flared, and burst into violence.  If the seas had opened their fountains and the crust of the globe crushed up, there would have been no greater chaos.  But in my faintness and agony I caught the blue eye which had soothed and melted me so often, and, clasping my hands, I fell at her knees and said,

“‘Heraine, I love you!’

“It was her time to tremble now, and I interpreted the pallor of her cheek as a signal of hope.

“‘I know that I love you,’ I said; ’if the earth and the stars were to be blotted out, and you remain, I should not miss them.  You are my universe.  Without you there is no creation, and the elements are at war.  If you leave me, you have left only a bright space in a wretched eternity.  No voice but yours can say “peace” to me.  Be merciful and remain!’

“She was moved with my appeal, and tears came to her eyes.

“‘I did not know that it had come to this,’ she said.  Then her composure returned, and she raised me with a smile.

“‘If you would win any woman,’ she said meaningly, ’you must first be a man.  You are not a man, Luke.  You are a child!  You have shut the sunlight from you, and the trill of a thrush pierces you like an arrow.  Would you cage your wife in the gloominess of this sepulchre?  Would you hush her songs, and tremble beneath her caresses, and die in the delights of her love?  Go!  Open the window of this vault!  Mingle with the crowds of cities!  Ascend into the mountains!  Cross the seas!  Become worthy of my affection, and then entreat me again!’

“She had shown me the abject thing I was.  Her conditions were harder than death; but the hope she had spoken was like a glimpse of Heaven, and I answered,