“I said ‘Herminia,’” the young man repeated, with a marked stress on the Christian name.

Herminia hesitated a second.  Then two crimson spots flared forth on her speaking face, as she answered with an effort, “About you too, Alan.”

The young man drew back and gazed at her.

She was very, very beautiful.  “Dare I ask you, Herminia?” he cried.  “Have I a right to ask you?  Am I worthy of you, I mean?  Ought I to retire as not your peer, and leave you to some man who could rise more easily to the height of your dignity?”

“I’ve thought about that too,” Herminia answered, still firm to her principles.  “I’ve thought it all over.  I’ve said to myself, Shall I do right in monopolizing him, when he is so great, and sweet, and true, and generous?  Not monopolizing, of course, for that would be wrong and selfish; but making you my own more than any other woman’s.  And I answered my own heart, Yes, yes, I shall do right to accept him, if he asks me; for I love him, that is enough.  The thrill within me tells me so.  Nature put that thrill in our souls to cry out to us with a clear voice when we had met the soul she then and there intended for us.”

Alan’s face flushed like her own.  “Then you love me,” he cried, all on fire.  “And you deign to tell me so; Oh, Herminia, how sweet you are.  What have I done to deserve it?”

He folded her in his arms.  Her bosom throbbed on his.  Their lips met for a second.  Herminia took his kiss with sweet submission, and made no faint pretence of fighting against it.  Her heart was full.  She quickened to the finger-tips.

There was silence for a minute or two,—­the silence when soul speaks direct to soul through the vehicle of touch, the mother-tongue of the affections.  Then Alan leaned back once more, and hanging over her in a rapture murmured in soft low tones, “So Herminia, you will be mine!  You say beforehand you will take me.”

“Not will be yours,” Herminia corrected in that silvery voice of hers.  “Am yours already, Alan.  I somehow feel as if I had always been yours.  I am yours this moment.  You may do what you would with me.”

She said it so simply, so purely, so naturally, with all the supreme faith of the good woman, enamoured, who can yield herself up without blame to the man who loves her, that it hardly even occurred to Alan’s mind to wonder at her self-surrender.  Yet he drew back all the same in a sudden little crisis of doubt and uncertainty.  He scarcely realized what she meant.  “Then, dearest,” he cried tentatively, “how soon may we be married?”

At sound of those unexpected words from such lips as his, a flush of shame and horror overspread Herminia’s cheek.  “Never!” she cried firmly, drawing away.  “Oh, Alan, what can you mean by it?  Don’t tell me, after all I’ve tried to make you feel and understand, you thought I could possibly consent to marry you?”