swer which I shall
never take. Yesterday I went away and left you, to-day I am wiser.
Nothing can undo those few minutes on the cliffs, dearest. You love me!
Ah! you cannot deny it! Have I not read it in your face, and in your
eyes? Take back your 'no,' Margharita. By the memory of those few
minutes, you are mine forever! You have not the power or the right to
deny yourself to me. You are mine! You belong to me!"

I shrank back. I began to be frightened at his earnestness--at the note
of triumph in his voice. How strong and masterful he was. Should I be
able to hold out against him? Only my will and the memory of a wasted
life against my heart and such pleading as this. It was a hard, unequal
battle.

"Margharita, I love you all the more that you are not lightly won!" he
continued, drawing me closer to him--almost into his arms. "Listen! I
believe that I have some idea as to the reason of your answer. You
think, perhaps, that my people might not be willing. You are proud--too
proud. Tell me, is this not so?"

"A governess is no fitting wife for you. You should choose one from
among the noble women of your country. I----"

He interrupted me. If I had not drawn back quickly he would have stopped
my lips with a kiss.

"No one in this world could be as fit as you, for it is you, and you
only, whom I love. But listen! I have spoken to my mother. I have told
her."

"You have told her what?" I cried.

"That I love you. That I have asked you to be my wife."

"What did she say?"

"What a true woman and good mother should say; that if you were indeed
my choice, then she was ready to welcome you as her daughter, and my
wife."

"You cannot mean it!" I cried. "She knows nothing of me, and I am
penniless."

"She knows that I love you, and that would be sufficient, dearest. But,
as it happens, she knew more about you than I did. From her I learned,
for the first time, that your mother came from a family which was great
and noble before ours was ever founded. She told me a sad story of your
uncle, Margharita, which you, too, doubtless know of, and she seemed
glad to think that our marriage would be, in a certain sense, an act of
poetic justice. She told me, too, Margharita, that if your uncle died
unmarried, you could, if you chose, take his name and call yourself the
Countess di Marioni. Why, sweetheart, I am not sure that I ought to
aspire to the hand of so great a lady."

"Your mother, the Countess of St. Maurice, t