hick in her eyes.

"Mary--dear, dearest Mary!" and he pressed the hand he held--"You know I
love you!--you know----"

She turned her face towards him--a pale, wondering face,--and tried to
smile.

"How do I know?" she murmured tremulously--"How can I believe? I'm past
the time for love!"

For all answer he drew her into his arms.

"Ask Love itself about that, Mary!" he said. "Ask my heart, which beats
for you,--ask my soul, which longs for you!--ask me, who worship you,
you, best and dearest of women, about the time for love! That time for
us is now, Mary!--now and always!"

Then came a silence--that eloquent silence which surpasses all speech.
Love has no written or spoken language--it is incommunicable as God. And
Mary, whose nature was open and pure as the daylight, would not have
been the woman she was if she could have expressed in words the deep
tenderness and passion which at that supreme moment silently responded
to her lover's touch, her lover's embrace. And when,--lifting her face
between his two hands, he gazed at it long and earnestly, a smile,
shining between tears, brightened her sweet eyes.

"You are looking at me as if you never saw me before, Angus!" she said,
her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced his name.

"Positively, I don't think I ever have!" he answered "Not as you are
now, Mary! I have never seen you look so beautiful! I have never seen
you before as my love! my wife!"

She drew herself a little away from him.

"But, are you sure you are doing right for yourself?" she asked--"You
know you could marry anybody----"

He laughed, and threw one arm round her waist.

"Thanks!--I don't want to marry 'anybody'--I want to marry _you_! The
question is, will you have me?"

She smiled.

"If I thought it would be for your good----"

Stooping quickly he kissed her.

"_That's_ very much for my good!" he declared. "And now that I've told
you my mind, you must tell me yours. Do you love me, Mary?"

"I'm afraid you know that already too well!" she said, with a wistful
radiance in her eyes.

"I don't!" he declared--"I'm not at all sure of you----"

She interrupted him.

"Are you sure of yourself?"

"Mary!"

"Ah, don't look so reproachful! It's only for you I'm thinking! You see
I'm nothing but a poor working woman of what is called the lower
classes--I'm not young, and I'm not clever. Now you've got genius;
you'll be a great man some day, quite soon perhaps--you may even become