was burning in
the library, and I recognized the arm-chair which Rattray had drawn
thence for me on the night of our dinner--the very night before! I led
Eva back into the room, and I closed both doors. I supported my poor
girl to the chair, and once more I knelt before her and took her hands
in mine. My great hour was come at last: surely a happy omen that it was
also the hour before the dawn.

"Cry your fill, my darling," I whispered, with the tears in my own
voice. "You shall never have anything more to cry for in this world! God
has been very good to us. He brought you to me, and me to you. He has
rescued us for each other. All our troubles are over; cry your fill; you
will never have another chance so long as I live, if only you will let
me live for you. Will you, Eva? Will you? Will you?"

She drew her hands from mine, and sat upright in the chair, looking at
me with round eyes; but mine were dim; astonishment was all that I
could read in her look, and on I went headlong, with growing impetus and
passion.

"I know I am not much, my darling; but you know I was not always what my
luck, good and bad, has left me now, and you will make a new man of
me so soon! Besides, God must mean it, or He would not have thrown us
together amid such horrors, and brought us through them together still.
And you have no one else to take care of you in the world! Won't you let
me try, Eva? Say that you will!"

"Then--you--owe me?" she said slowly, in a low, awe-struck voice that
might have told me my fate at once; but I was shaking all over in the
intensity of my passion, and for the moment it was joy enough to be able
at last to tell her all.

"Love you?" I echoed. "With every fibre of my being! With every atom of
my heart and soul and body! I love you well enough to live to a hundred
for you, or to die for you to-night!"

"Well enough to--give me up?" she whispered.

I felt as though a cold hand had checked my heart at its hottest, but
I mastered myself sufficiently to face her question and to answer it as
honestly as I might.

"Yes!" I cried; "well enough even to do that, if it was for your
happiness; but I might be rather difficult to convince about that."

"You are very strong and true," she murmured. "Yes, I can trust you as
I have never trusted anybody else! But--how long have you been so
foolish?" And she tried very hard to smile.

"Since I first saw you; but I only knew it on the night of the fire.
Till that night