t you were the
only woman in all the world for me."

She listened with a happy smile playing round her beautiful lips, her
dark eyes drooping, her flower-like face flushed and turned from his.

"You are my fate--my destiny! Ah! if you love me, Pauline--if you will
only love me, I shall not have lived in vain! Your love would incite me
to win name and fame--not for myself, but for you. Your love would crown
a king--what would it not do for me? Turn your face to me, Pauline? You
are not angry? Surely great love wins great love--and there could be no
love greater than mine."

Still the beautiful face was averted. There was the sunlight on the sea;
the western wind sighed around them. A great fear came over him. Surely,
on this most fair and sunny day, his love was not to meet a cruel death.
His voice was so full of this fear when he spoke again that she, in
surprise, turned and looked at him.

"Pauline," he cried, "you cannot mean to be cruel to me. I am no
coward, but I would rather face death than your rejection."

Then it was that their eyes met; and that which he saw in hers was a
revelation to him. The next moment he had clasped her to his heart, and
was pouring out a torrent of passionate words--such words, so tender, so
loving, so full of passion and hope, that her face grew pale as she
listened, and the beautiful figure trembled.

"I have frightened you, my darling," he said, suddenly. "Ah! do forgive
me. I was half mad with joy. You do not know how I have longed to tell
you this, yet feared--I knew not what--you seemed so far above me,
sweet. See, you are trembling now! I am as cruel as a man who catches in
his hands a white dove that he has tamed, and hurts it by his grasp. Sit
down here and rest, while I tell you over and over again, in every
fashion, in every way, how I love you."

The sun never shone upon happier lovers than those. The golden doors of
Love's paradise were open to them.

"I never knew until now," said Vane, "how beautiful life is. Why,
Pauline, love is the very center of it; it is not money or rank--it is
love that makes life. Only to think, my darling, that you and I may
spend every hour of it together."

She raised her eyes to the fair, calm heavens, and infinite happiness
filled her soul to overflowing; a deep, silent prayer ascended unspoken
from her heart.

Suddenly she sprang from his side with a startled cry.

"Oh, Vane!" she said, with outstretched hands, "I had forgotten t