"I did come to Marston originally on that errand, but I have so far failed in finding any trace of her in this place that I begin to think we were mistaken in our inferences that she had ever lived here." "Yet you had reason for thinking that she did," Hermione went on, with the anxiety of one desirous to put off the declaration she probably saw coming. "Yes; we had reasons, but they prove to have been unfounded." "Was--was your motive for finding her an important one?" she asked, with some hesitation, and a look of curiosity in her fine eyes. "Quite; a fortune of some thousands is involved in her discovery. She is heiress to at least a hundred thousand dollars from a sister she has not seen since they were girls together." "Indeed!" and Hermione's eyes opened in some surprise, then fell before the burning light in his. "But do not let us talk of a matter that for me is now of secondary interest," cried he, letting the full stream of his ardor find its way. "You are all I can think of now; you, you, whom I have loved since I caught the first glimpse of your face one night through the window yonder. Though I have known you but a little while, and though I cannot hope to have awakened a kindred feeling in you, you have so filled my mind and heart during the few short weeks since I learned your name, that I find it impossible to keep back the words which the sight of your face calls forth. I love you, and I want to guard you from loneliness forever. Will you give me that sweet right?" "But," she cried, starting to her feet in an excitement that made her face radiantly beautiful, "you do not seem to think of my misfortune, my----" "Do you mean this scar?" he whispered softly, gliding swiftly to her side. "It is no misfortune in my eyes; on the contrary, I think it endears you to me all the more. I love it, Hermione, because it is a part of you. See how I feel towards it!" and he bent his head with a quick movement, and imprinted a kiss upon the mark she had probably never touched herself but with shrinking. "Oh!" went up from her lips in a low cry, and she covered her face with her hands in a rush of feeling that was not entirely connected with that moment. "Did you think I would let that stand in my way?" he asked, with a proud tenderness with which no sensitive woman could fail to be impressed. "It is one reason more for a man to love your beautiful face, your noble manners, your soft white hand. I think half the pleasure would be gone from the prospect of loving you if I did not hope to make you forget what you have perhaps too often remembered." She dropped her hands, and he saw her eyes fixed upon him with a strange look. "O how wicked I have been!" she murmured. "And what good men there are in the world!" He shook his head. "It is not goodness," he began, but she stopped him with a wave of her hand. A strange elation seemed to have taken hold of her, and she walked the floor with lifted head and sparkling eye.