of your life! oh! give me the ruins of your heart!  I will guard you tenderly; we will go to Europe—­to the East; and rest of mind, and easy travelling, and change of scene will restore you.  I never realized, never dreamed how much my happiness depended upon you, until you left the city.  I have always relied so entirely upon myself, feeling the need of no other human being; but now, separated from you I am restless, am conscious of a vague discontent.  If you spend the next year as you have spent the last, you will not survive it.  I have conferred with your physician.  He reluctantly told me your alarming condition, and I have come to plead with you for the last time not to continue your suicidal course, not to destroy the life which, if worthless to you, is inexpressibly precious to a man who prays to be allowed to take care of it.  A man who realizes that it is necessary to the usefulness and peace of his own lonely life; who wishes no other reward on earth but the privilege of looking into your approving eyes, when his daily work is ended, and he sits down at his fireside.  Edna!  I do not ask for your love, but I beg for your hand, your confidence, your society—­for the right to save you from toil.  Will you go to the Old World with me?”

Looking suddenly up at him, she was astonished to find tears in his searching and usually cold eyes.

Scandinavian tradition reports that seven parishes were once overwhelmed, and still lie buried under snow and ice, and yet occasionally those church-bells are heard ringing clearly under the glaciers of the Folge Fond.

So, in the frozen, crystal depths of this man’s nature, his long silent, smothered affections began to chime.

A proud smile trembled over Edna’s face, as she saw how entirely she possessed the heart of one, whom above all other men she most admired.

“Mr. Manning, the assertion that you regard your life as imperfect, incomplete, without the feeble complement of mine—­that you find your greatest happiness in my society, is the most flattering, the most gratifying tribute which ever has been, or ever can be paid to my intellect.  It is a triumph indeed; and, because unsought, surely it is a pardonable pride that makes my heart throb.  This assurance of your high regard is the brightest earthly crown I shall ever wear.  But, sir, you err egregiously in supposing that you would be happy wedded to a woman who did not love you.  You think now that if we were only married, my constant presence in your home, my implicit confidence in your character, would fully content you; but here you fail to understand your own heart, and I know that the consciousness that my affection was not yours would make you wretched.  No, no! my dear, noble friend!  God never intended us for each other.  I can not go to the Old World with you.  I know how peculiarly precarious is my tenure of life, and how apparently limited is my time for work in this world, but I am content.