lost woman. It is only a question of time now!

"Clara! do you love me?"

There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at him--she trembles
with strange contradictory sensations of pleasure and pain. His
arm steals round her; he repeats his question in a whisper; his
lips almost touch her little rosy ear as he says it again:

"Do you love me?"

She closes her eyes faintly--she hears nothing but those
words--feels nothing but his arm round her--forgets Mrs.
Crayford's warning--forgets Richard Wardour himself--turns
suddenly, with a loving woman's desperate disregard of everything
but her love--nestles her head on his bosom, and answers him in
that way, at last!

He lifts the beautiful drooping head--their lips meet in their
first kiss--they are both in heaven: it is Clara who brings them
back to earth again with a start--it is Clara who says, "Oh! what
have I done?"--as usual, when it is too late.

Frank answers the question.

"You have made me happy, my angel. Now, when I come back, I come
back to make you my wife."

She shudders. She remembers Richard Wardour again at those words.