“And is this all you can say, Edith,” exclaimed Edward passionately. “Is this cold approval all I can hope to receive from the object of my first and only love? Have not my every look and tone told you how deeply I loved you, and can you let me depart without one word of tenderness or regret? Must I remember your gentle face but as a dream of boyhood? Shall your low, sweet voice be but as the melody of by-gone years? May I not bear with me, in my banishment, a hope, faint and cold it may be as the winter sunbeam, yet lighting up my dreary path with something like a promise of future happiness? Edith I ask no plighted faith; I wish you not to pledge me your hand till I can come forward and claim it openly; but I would fain know whether my love is but as incense flung upon the winds. If you can offer no return to my affection, dearest, let me at once know my fate, and with all the force of an over-mastering will, shall my heart be silenced, if not subdued. Say that you love me not, Edith, and though the stream of my life must forever bear your image on its surface, yet you shall never know how dark has been the shadow it has cast. Say that you love me not, and you shall never hear a murmur from my lips, nor shall your peaceful existence be saddened by the gloom which must ever pervade mine. You are silent Edith—you cannot bear to utter the words which must condemn me to despair.” Ellis paused, and strove to read in Edith’s face, the feelings to which she could not give utterance. But her eyes were bent upon the ground, while the big tears fell like rain from beneath the drooping lids and in her flushed cheek he saw only displeasure. “I was right, Edith,” said he, sadly, “you do not love me; forgive and forget my folly, but let us not part in coldness.” He took her hand again, as he spoke: “I perhaps deserve punishment for my selfishness in thus asking the heart when I could not claim the hand; when I am gone, some happier lover will perhaps ask both and then—” “He will be denied,” interrupted Edith, hastily, turning her agitated face towards her suitor. “This is no time for maiden coyness, Edward; your happiness and mine are both at stake, and therefore I tell you, what till this moment was unknown even to myself, that my affections are in your keeping.” “Dearest, dearest Edith, then am I supremely happy; I ask no more; let the only bond between us be the secret one of cherished love.” “Not so, Edward; you have promised your father not to enter into any engagement, but I am bound by no such restraints. You are, and must remain free from all other bonds than those of feeling, but if it will add to your happiness to be assured of my faith during your absence, I pledge you my word that my hand shall be yours whenever you come to claim it.” “But your parents, Edith,—what will they say, if they find you clinging to a remembered lover, and perhaps rejecting some advantageous settlement?”