n act, which, when it came near to
you,--when the doing of it had to be more closely considered, you
found to be contrary to your nature." Now, as he spoke thus, she
turned her eyes upon him, and looked at him, wondering that he should
have had power to read her heart so accurately. "I never believed
that you would marry your cousin. When I was told of it, I knew that
trouble had blinded you for awhile. You had driven yourself to revolt
against me, and upon that your heart misgave you, and you said to
yourself that it did not matter then how you might throw away all
your sweetness. You see that I speak of your old love for me with the
frank conceit of a happy lover."

"No;--no, no!" she ejaculated.

"But the storm passes over the tree and does not tear it up by
the roots or spoil it of all its symmetry. When we hear the winds
blowing, and see how the poor thing is shaken, we think that its
days are numbered and its destruction at hand. Alice, when the
winds were shaking you, and you were torn and buffeted, I never
thought so. There may be some who will forgive you slowly. Your own
self-forgiveness will be slow. But I, who have known you better than
any one,--yes, better than any one,--I have forgiven you everything,
have forgiven you instantly. Come to me, Alice, and comfort me. Come
to me, for I want you sorely." She sat quite still, looking at the
lake and the mountain beyond, but she said nothing. What could she
say to him? "My need of you is much greater now," he went on to say,
"than when I first asked you to share the world with me. Then I could
have borne to lose you, as I had never boasted to myself that you
were my own,--had never pictured to myself the life that might be
mine if you were always to be with me. But since that day I have had
no other hope,--no other hope but this for which I plead now. Am I to
plead in vain?"

"You do not know me," she said; "how vile I have been! You do not
think what it is,--for a woman to have promised herself to one man
while she loved another."

"But it was me you loved. Ah! Alice, I can forgive that. Do I not
tell you that I did forgive it the moment that I heard it? Do you not
hear me say that I never for a moment thought that you would marry
him? Alice, you should scold me for my vanity, for I have believed
all through that you loved me, and me only. Come to me, dear, and
tell me that it is so, and the past shall be only as a dream."

"I am dreaming it always," sai