'Your wants are very simple, as your tastes are, Ida, and my fortune is more than equal to your own--in worldly matters there can be nothing wanting.' 'I know, Jerry, that a devotion such as yours deserves all the love I could and ought to give it; and yet----' She paused, and permitted him to retain her hand. Was she, in spite of her asseverations to the contrary, about to love him after all? The heart of Vane beat wildly amid the dawn of fresh hope. 'Many men have loved, Ida,' he urged, in a soft, low, passionate tone; 'but it seems to me that I love you as few men have ever loved before. From the first moment I met you I loved you--and--and--surely circumstances have tested and tried that love to the uttermost.' 'Most true, Jerry.' 'I ask not of what your--your regard has been for another since we parted; I ask you only to love me as you did before that time, if you can.' The words that Vane spoke came from the depth of the honest fellow's heart, in the full tide of emotion, and Ida could not fail to be touched; and as she gave him one of her profound yet indefinable glances of pity, the light in her beautiful eyes seemed to brighten as her lashes drooped, and Jerry read in them an expression he had not seen there since the happy time that was past. In fact, Ida seemed to be trembling in her heart to think how dear--was it indeed so?--how dear Jerry Vane was becoming to her again, and how necessary to her his society was daily becoming, and how like the old time it was--more like than, with all her past love for Jack Beverley and her strange dreams and hauntings, she dared to acknowledge to herself! 'Say, Ida, that the gap in my life is to be forgotten--filled up it can never be!' 'Jerry, Jerry,' she urged, 'do not press me so--at present, at least!' She was yielding after all. 'May I hope that you will accept me yet?' he said, pressing her hand caressingly between both of his. 'A heart is not worth having, Jerry, that accords to pity only what it should accord to love. You have all my esteem, and, perhaps, in time, Jerry----' She paused and shuddered visibly, and sank back with eyes half closed and a hand pressed on her bosom as if about to faint or fall, but Jerry's arm supported her. 'Good heavens, that sensation again!' he exclaimed. 'I must struggle against it, or it will conquer me,' she said, suddenly regaining her firmness and striving to crush or shake off the nervous emotion that shook her fragile form and gentle spirit. 'My darling, I am to blame; oh, pardon me, if I, at a time when your health--your nervous system, at least--so selfishly urge my claim upon your heart, for a strong and tender claim I have, indeed, Ida.' There was in this an eloquence greater than more florid phrases could express, as he spoke, for it seemed as if Jerry's very soul was spent in what he said. After a pause, he said, with an arm still round her: