He took her hand, and earnestly, indeed almost passionately continued: "Miss Alice, I pray you teach me how to be a true man. Have patience with me, and I will try to be worthy of your esteem. You have made me loathe my old, vile self. You have made true manhood seem so noble and attractive that I am willing to make every effort, and suffer any pain,--even that of seeing you shine upon me in the unapproachable distance of a star. Make me feel that you do care what I become. Speak to me sometimes as you did the other evening among the flowers. Give me the same advice that I find in the old yellow letters which have been my Bible, and, believe me, you will not regret it." Alice's hand trembled like a frightened bird as he held it in both of his, and she faltered, "I never had a brother, but I scarcely think I could feel towards one differently--" and then the truthful girl stopped in painful confusion. Her love for Harcourt was not sisterly at all, and how could she say that it was? But he, only too grateful, filled out the sentence for her, and in a deep, thrilling tone answered, "And if my love for you is warmer than a brother's,--more full of the deep, absorbing passion that comes to us but once,--I will try to school it into patience, and live worthily of my love for her who inspired it." Again she gave him a quick look of startled surprise, and said hastily, "You forget yourself, sir. Such language belongs to another." "To another?" "Yes; to Miss Marchmont." "Miss Marchmont can claim nothing from me, save a slight cousinly regard." "It is reported that you are engaged." "It's false," he said passionately. "It is true, that before you returned, and while I was reckless because I believed you despised me, I trifled away more time there than I should. But Miss Marchmont, in reality, is as indifferent towards me as I towards her. I am not bound to her by even a gossamer thread." Alice turned away her face, and was speechless. "And did you think," he asked reproachfully, "that I could love her after knowing you?" "Love is blind," she faltered after a moment, "and is often guilty of strange freaks. It does not weigh and estimate." "But my love for you is all that there is good in me. My love is the most rational thing of my life." She withdrew her hand from his, and, snatching the rope that was stained with his blood, she kissed it and said, "So is mine." "O Alice! what do you mean?" and he trembled as violently as she had done when he startled her on the beach. She shyly lifted her blue eyes to his, and said, "Foolish Tom, surely your love is blind." Then to Harcourt the door of heaven opened. When Mr. Martell returned, he saw by the firelight in his dusky study that his daughter had made such ample amends that but little was left for him to do; but he did that right heartily. Then the Christian man said, "Alice, compare this with the shadow of 'Storm King,' and the grinding ice. Let us thank God."