“I will love you,” he cried. “Help me to love you, Clarice; help me to forget this black, brooding shadow that darkens my life; help me to be a braver, better, nobler man by becoming my wife.” “I will, if you will love me. Ah, Ronald! why is she fairer to you than I am? Why should you give her more than me? You say she has been cruel to you. Listen! I have loved you as long as you have loved her. I have never given one thought to any other than yourself. You talk about love--oh, Ronald! could you count the leaves on the trees you might, perhaps, be able to tell how dearly I love you.” She clasped her white hands and laid them folded on his breast. “Do you know that if at any time my life could have saved you, I would have laid it down for you? Do not think I am speaking as women should not speak. There is no pain you have suffered that has not been doubled for me. I have asked but one boon from Heaven, one grace, one blessing--and that was your love, Ronald.” “Alas, that I have not more to give!” “Never say that; I am content. You did not choose me first, but perhaps in the years to come you may love me best. You have chosen me as your comforter, and I would rather be that to you than the worshiped queen of any man.” Her golden head drooped on his breast, and her voice died away, in a passionate murmur that was but a sigh. “I do not deserve it,” he said, regretfully. “Ah, yes, you do. Because she has slighted you, Ronald, it does not follow that her estimate of you must be right. Oh, my love, my king among men! I know how to honor you. I say among all living men, you have not your peer. Because she has been cold and false, I will love you doubly; because she has made you unhappy, I will spend my whole life in trying to make you happy; and if she came to us now, in all the fatal lure of her beauty, and tried to take you from me, she should not. I would keep you by the force of my own mighty love.” It was very pleasant; even the sweet south wind seemed to listen to the pleading, passionate voice. “Why, Ronald, when you found me here,” she continued, “I was weeping over you--weeping that my love was so unhappy--that the bright young years of my life were passing in bitterest gloom; for I came to the old tree last year, and watched the leaves fall, and, Ronald, it seemed to me that, even as they fell one by one and died so slowly, that thus my hopes faded, and every year saw you further from loving me. That was why I wept. I shall never shed such tears again.” He could do nothing but bend down and kiss the beautiful face, praying God in his heart that he might love her as she deserved, and that he might make the life bright whose brightness depended so entirely on him. CHAPTER XX. A LAST LOOK. Sir Ronald never knew how the news of his engagement was received by the “ladye he loved.” The Lorristons went away soon afterward to pay a long-promised round of visits. He did not know whether she were pleased, piqued, or surprised.