There was no more tremor in his voice than in the measured beat of a base drum; and in his granite face not a feature moved, not a muscle twitched, not a nerve quivered.

So entirely unexpected was this proposal that Edna could not utter a word.  The idea that he could ever wish to marry anybody seemed incredible, and that he should need her society appeared utterly absurd.  For an instant she wondered if she had fallen asleep in the soft, luxurious corner of the carriage, and dreamed it all.

Completely bewildered, she sat looking wonderingly at him.

“Miss Earl, you do not seem to comprehend me, and yet my words are certainly very explicit.  Once more I ask you, can you put your hand in mine and be my wife?”

He laid one hand on hers, and with the other pushed back his glasses.

Withdrawing her hands, she covered her face with them, and answered almost inaudibly: 

“Let me think—­for you astonish me.”

“Take a day, or a week, if necessary, for consideration, and then give me your answer.”

Mr. Manning leaned back in the carriage, folded his hands, and looked quietly out of the window; and for a half hour silence reigned.

Brief but sharp was the struggle in Edna’s heart.  Probably no woman’s literary vanity and ambition has ever been more fully gratified than was hers, by this most unexpected offer of marriage from one whom she had been taught to regard as the noblest ornament of the profession she had selected.  Thinking of the hour when she sat alone, shedding tears of mortification and bitter disappointment over his curt letter rejecting her Ms., she glanced at the stately form beside her, the mysteriously calm, commanding face, the large white, finely moulded hands, waiting to clasp hers for all time, and her triumph seemed complete.

To rule the destiny of that strong man, whose intellect was so influential in the world of letters, was a conquest of which, until this hour, she had never dreamed; and the blacksmith’s darling was, after all, a mere woman, and the honor dazzled her.

To one of her peculiar temperament wealth offered no temptation; but Douglass Manning had climbed to a grand eminence, and, looking up at it, she knew that any woman might well be proud to share it.

He filled her ideal, he came fully up to her lofty moral and mental standard.  She knew that his superior she could never hope to meet, and her confidence in his integrity of character was boundless.

She felt that his society had become necessary to her peace of mind; for only in his presence was it possible to forget her past.  Either she must marry him, or live single, and work and die—­alone.

To a girl of nineteen the latter alternative seems more appalling than to a woman of thirty, whose eyes have grown strong in the gray, cold, sunless light of confirmed old-maidenhood; even as the vision of those who live in dim caverns requires not the lamps needed by new-comers fresh from the dazzling outer world.