“Editha,” he began, trying to steady his shaking voice, “you have told me that you have read of my success, and know that I am winning the esteem and respect of men in spite of the past. I am rising higher on the ladder of prosperity every day, and money flows in rapidly upon me from every side. If my business abroad proves as successful as it has here, I have reason to hope that great good in a worldly point of view is coming to me—just what that is I cannot explain to you now—but under the circumstances I feel that I cannot be silent any longer. I _cannot_ go away from you without speaking the words I have so longed to utter—to tell you of the deep and mighty love I have had to chain as with iron bands for a long time. Editha, I have loved you for more than half a dozen years. When I came to you last Christmas, alone and friendless, believing that you also had ceased to remember me, I can never tell you the revulsion of feeling I experienced when you gave me your simple but heartfelt greeting, while there was that in your eyes and manner which told me I might hope that you could love me in return. Your kindness and trust in me were almost more than I could bear at that time. I could have fallen down before you and kissed the hem of your garments, for your divine charity toward one upon whom all others looked with scorn or pity, as if I was afflicted with some deadly and incurable plague. My darling, did I read aright? Did not your yes tell me that day that you could love me if I could come to you with stainless name? Will you give me that assurance now, before I go away? Will you tell me that when I have cleared away that blight from my life—_as I shall clear it yet_—you will be my wife?” The last word was spoken in an intense whisper, as if it was too sacred to be uttered aloud, while he paused and scarcely breathed as he awaited her reply, his noble face illuminated with an earnest pleading more eloquent than his burning words had been. We have seen all along that Editha Dalton was possessed of a character remarkable for its veracity and straightforward feeling. She realized now that this was the most serious and sacred moment of her whole life—that upon her reply hung the happiness of her own and Earle’s future. There was no coyness, no hesitation in her answer, though no lack of maidenly delicacy and dignity in her words and manner, as she lifted her flushed face, glorified with the light of her noble, steadfast love for him, and said: “Earle, if you had told me all this last Christmas-time you need not have lived quite such a lonely, loveless life ever since. I believe I have loved you from the time when you first came to Uncle Richard’s, only I never found it out until the day of your trial.” “Editha, can it be possible?” Earle exclaimed, his face almost transfigured by her words.