not professors of sounding sentences, or affected by missionary zeal,
when they venture to breathe the holy name, Evan blushed, and walked on
humbly silent. Caroline murmured: 'Yes, yes! oh, brother!' and her
figure drew to him as if for protection. Pale, she looked up.

'Shall you always love me, Evan?'

'Whom else have I to love?'

'But always--always? Under any circumstances?'

'More and more, dear. I always have, and shall. I look to you now. I
have no home but in your heart now.'

She was agitated, and he spoke warmly to calm her.

The throb of deep emotion rang in her rich voice. 'I will live any life
to be worthy of your love, Evan,' and she wept.

To him they were words and tears without a history.

Nothing further passed between them. Caroline went to the Countess: Evan
waited for Rose. The sun was getting high. The face of the stream
glowed like metal. Why did she not come? She believed him guilty from
the mouth of another? If so, there was something less for him to lose.
And now the sacrifice he had made did whisper a tale of mortal
magnificence in his ears: feelings that were not his noblest stood up
exalted. He waited till the warm meadow-breath floating past told that
the day had settled into heat, and then he waited no more, but quietly
walked into the house with the strength of one who has conquered more