-that I am more
to you than you ever before deigned to let me know? If it, indeed, be so,
oh! give me the unmistakable assurance."

Her lips moved; he stooped his haughty head to catch the low fluttering
words.

"You said that night: 'I could forgive your father all! all if I knew that
he had not so successfully hardened, closed your heart against me.' Forgive
him, Russell. You never can know all that you have been to me from my
childhood. Only God, who sees my heart, knows what suffering our long
alienation has cost me."

An instant he wavered, his strong frame quivered, and then he caught her
exultingly in his arms, resting her head upon his bosom, leaning his
swarthy hot cheek on hers, cold and transparent as alabaster.

"At last I realize the one dream of my life! I hold you to my heart,
acknowledged all my own! Who shall dare dispute the right your lips have
given me? Hatred is powerless now; none shall come between me and my own. O
Irene! my beautiful darling! not all my ambitious hopes, not all the future
holds, not time, nor eternity, could purchase the proud, inexpressible joy
of this assurance."

"Instead of cherishing your affection for me, you struggled against it with
all the energy of your character. I have seen, for some time, that you were
striving to crush it out--to forget me entirely."

"I do not deny it; and certainly you ought not to blame me. You kept me at
a distance with your chilling, yet graceful, fascinating _hauteur_. I had
nothing to hope--everything to suffer. I diligently set to work to expel
you utterly from my thoughts; and I tell you candidly, I endeavoured to
love another, who was brilliant, and witty, and universally admired. But
her fitful, stormy, exacting temperament was too much like my own to suit
me. I tried faithfully to become attached to her, intending to make her my
wife, but I failed signally. My heart clung stubbornly to its old worship;
my restless, fiery spirit could find no repose, no happiness, save in the
purity, the profound marvellous calm of your nature. You became the synonym
of peace, rest; and, because you gave me no friendly word or glance,
locking your passionless face against me, I grew savage toward you. Did you
believe that I would marry Salome?"

"No! I had faith that, despite your angry efforts, your heart would be true
to me."

"Why did you inflict so much pain on us both, when a word would have
explained all? When the assurance you have given m