ere it not that it will be the throne, the crown, the summit,
of the future.--Oh, Jane! I have admired so many women. I have raved
about them, sighed for them, painted them, and forgotten them. But I
never LOVED a woman before; I never knew what womanhood meant to a man,
until I heard your voice thrill through the stillness--'I count each
pearl.' Ah, beloved, I have learned to count pearls since then,
precious hours in the past, long forgotten, now remembered, and at last
understood. 'Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,' ay, a passionate
plea that past and present may blend together into a perfect rosary,
and that the future may hold no possibility of pain or parting. Oh,
Jane--Jane! Shall I ever be able to make you understand--all--how
much--Oh, JANE!"

She was not sure just when he had come so near; but he had dropped on
one knee in front of her, and, as he uttered the last broken sentences,
he passed both his arms around her waist and pressed his face into the
soft lace at her bosom. A sudden quietness came over him. All
struggling with explanations seemed hushed into the silence of complete
comprehension--an all-pervading, enveloping silence.

Jane neither moved nor spoke. It was so strangely sweet to have him
there--this whirlwind of emotion come home to rest, in a great
stillness, just above her quiet heart. Suddenly she realised that the
blank of the last three days had not been the miss of the music, but
the miss of HIM; and as she realised this, she unconsciously put her
arms about him. Sensations unknown to her before, awoke and moved
within her,--a heavenly sense of aloofness from the world, the
loneliness of life all swept away by this dear fact--just he and she
together. Even as she thought it, felt it, he lifted his head, still
holding her, and looking into her face, said: "You and I together, my
own--my own."

But those beautiful shining eyes were more than Jane could bear. The
sense of her plainness smote her, even in that moment; and those
adoring eyes seemed lights that revealed it. With no thought in her
mind but to hide the outward part from him who had suddenly come so
close to the shrine within, she quickly put both hands behind his head
and pressed his face down again, into the lace at her bosom. But, to
him, those dear firm hands holding him close, by that sudden movement,
seemed an acceptance of himself and of all he had to offer. For ten,
twenty, thirty exquisite seconds, his soul throbb