How happy are those who hear that they are
loved!" and opening them, all her face being red, "Say it!" she pleaded.
Her fingers fell upon his wrist. "I have this weakness, Wilfrid; I wish
to hear you say it."

The flush of her face, and tremour of her fingers, told of an unimagined
agitation hardly to be believed, though seen and felt. Yet, still some
sign, some shade of a repulsion in her figure, kept him as far from her
as any rigid rival might have stipulated for.

The interrogation to the attentive heavens was partially framed in his
mind, "How can I tell this woman I love her, without..." without putting
his arm about her waist, and demonstrating it satisfactorily to himself
as well as to her? In other words, not so framed, "How, without that
frenzy which shall make me forget whether it be so or not?"

He remained in his attitude, incapable of moving or speaking, but
fancying, that possibly he was again to catch a glimpse of the vanished
mountain nymph, sweet Liberty. Her woman's instinct warmed more and more,
until, if she did not quite apprehend his condition, she at least
understood that the pause was one preliminary to a man's feeling himself
a fool.

"Dear Wilfrid," she whispered, "you think you are doubted. I want to be
certain that you think you have met the right woman to help you, in me."

He passed through the loophole here indicated, and breathed.

"Yes, Charlotte, I am sure of that. If I could be only half as worthy!
You are full of courage and unselfishness, and, I could swear, faithful
as steel."

"Thank you--not dogs," she laughed. "I like steel. I hope to be a good
sword in your hand, my knight--or shield, or whatever purpose you put me
to."

She went on smiling, and seeming to draw closer to him and throw down
defences.

"After all, Wilfrid, the task of loving your good piece of steel won't be
less thoroughly accomplished because you find it difficult. Sir, I do not
admit any protestation. Handsome faces, musical voices, sly manners, and
methods that I choose not to employ, make the business easy to men."

"Who discover that the lady is not steel," said Wilfrid. "Need she, in
any case, wear so much there?"

He pointed, flittingly as it were, with his little finger to the slope of
her neck.

She turned her wrist, touching the spot: "Here? You have seen, then, that
it is something worn?"

There followed a delicious interplay of eyes. Who would have thought that
hers could be sweet an