h.

It is not every woman that knows what it is to be so loved and to listen
to such words, so spoken. Those who have heard and felt can understand,
but not the rest. Gradually as he spoke, her veiled face was drawn
toward his; gradually her hand raised the thick veil and drew it back;
and again a little, and the hand that had struggled long and silently
against his, lay still at last, and the face that had appealed in vain
to Heaven, hid itself against the heart of the strong man.

"The Lord have mercy upon my sinful soul!" she softly prayed.

"I love you!" whispered Dalrymple, folding her to him with both his
arms, and pressing his lips to her head. "That is all the world holds.
That is all the Heaven there is, and we have it for our own."

But presently she drew back from him, clinging to him with her hands as
though to hold him, and yet separating from him and looking up into his
face.

"And to-morrow?" she said, with a despairing question in her tone.

"We will go away to-night," he answered, "and to-morrow will be ours,
too, and all the to-morrows after that."

But she shook her head, and her hands loosened their hold upon his arms,
still lingering on his sleeves.

"And leave her to die?" she asked, with a quick glance at the abbess's
door.

Then she looked at him, with something of sudden fear as she met his
eyes again. And almost instantly she turned from him, and threw herself
forward upon the table as she sat.

"The sin, the deadly sin!" she moaned. "Oh, the horror of it all--the
sin, the shame, the disgrace! That is the worst to bear--the shame! The
undying shame of it!"

Dalrymple's brows bent themselves in a heavy frown, for he was in no
temper to be thwarted, desperate as the risk might be. For himself, he
knew that he was setting his life on the chances, if she consented, and
that life would not be worth having if she refused. He knew well enough
that they must almost certainly be pursued, and that there would be
little hesitation about shooting him or cutting his throat if they were
caught and if he resisted, as he knew that he should. He had been in
love with her for days. The last twenty-four hours had made him
desperate. And a desperate man is not to be played with, more especially
if he chance to have any Highland blood in his veins.

"What do you believe in most?" he asked suddenly and almost brutally.

She turned, startled, and looked him in the face.

"Because, if you believe in G