I saw that her bosom heaved quicker than usual at these words, and she plied her needle with increased velocity. Had I looked more narrowly, I might have seen the color faintly coming and going in her cheek, and almost heard her heart beating in the audible silence. But I still was blind to the cause of this emotion. By some unaccountable impulse I was led to speak of a subject which I had always avoided, though not intentionally—my early intimacy with Annette, and her subsequent rescue from the brig. Secure, as I thought, of the sympathy of my listener, and carried away by my engrossing love for Annette, I dwelt on her story for some time, totally unconscious of the effect my words were producing on Ellen. My infatuation on that morning seems now incredible. As I became more earnest with my subject, I noticed still less the growing agitation of my listener, and it was not until I was in the midst of a sentence in which I paused for words to express the loveliness of Annette’s character, that I saw that Ellen was in tears. She was bending low over her work so as to conceal her agitation from my eye, but as I hesitated in my glowing description, a bright tear-drop fell on her lap. The truth broke on me like a flash of lightning. I saw it all as clear as by a noonday sun, and I wondered at my former blindness. I was stung to the heart by what I had just been saying, for what agony it must have inflicted on my hearer! I felt my situation to be deeply embarrassing, and broke short off in my sentence. After a moment, however, feeling that silence was more oppressive than anything else, I made a desperate effort and said, “Ellen!” It was a single word, and one which I had addressed to her a hundred times before; but perhaps there was something in the tone in which I spoke it, that revealed what was passing in my mind, for, as she heard her name, the poor girl burst into a flood of tears, and covering her face with her hands she rushed from the room. She felt that her secret was disclosed. She loved one whose heart was given to another.