“Nonsense! With a great future flashing before you.” “Could any fortune be sweet, or any gift it brought a woman be worth having, if the one for whom she cared were not there to share it with her?” “A woman’s love is essentially spiritual in its nature. It does not depend so much upon sight,” he said. She had dropped the oars. They were drifting dreamily. The sun had gone down below the horizon, leaving purple shadows on its rim. The willows sent their seductive motions across the face of the waters. She looked at him as though to draw him nearer and enfold him in her stretched-out arms. The warm impulses of her heart were warring in their wild effort to be free. Silence was the language of youth and love to him--they needed no words. The force and the sweetness, the purity and power of his nature as she interpreted it, was the complete realization of her beautiful dreams. “Have you ever forgiven me for spilling your blood and leaving a scar?” Her thrillingly delicate touch on his knee swept him with a swift, vigorous delight. “Forgiven! I’ve blessed you. That is something from you that I shall carry with me through life. And there’s another I want--a memory. You never have called me by my name.” Looking into his fine, clear face, she felt the love flowing softly like a fountain in her heart. “Glenn,” she whispered his beloved name. “Esther! dearest!” Drawing her toward him, he kissed her on her lips as he held her close in the clasp of his arms with the intensity of his commanding love. Her hat had fallen off; he caught the dank fragrance of her hair. Something fluttered in her breast--something new and strange and strong. She did not understand that she had left girlhood behind and become a woman. All the woman in her was quickened by his kiss. “Oh, how I love to feel your heart beating against mine.” Her words, her kiss, touched his soul to its depths. He was startled at the depths he had stirred. “Heart! dear heart of mine!” She was in a fit of adoring fury. Her lips met his, again and again. She loved him so humanly and yet there was only the tender throb and thrill of the sensitive nature in all its refinement. Sweet emotions shot through her breast. “Love me, no matter what comes, Esther, love me.” He too felt some hurting power bound through his blood, and wrestle with his reserve--his equilibrium. His low voice, his soft eyes, held her; not a tone, not a look but it caressed her. The soft shadows, the limpid waters, the open air--with it altogether he felt a strange softening. “You never said sweet words straight from your heart to me before.” “Why words? Instinct, nature, tells us when a thing is true. That great silent power often stands between the soul and what it loves. It is too deep for speech. Did you ever drop a pebble into a well to sound its depth? If it is shallow, you hear it when it strikes the bottom. But if you wait and never hear a sound, you know it is very deep.”