What a volume was at that moment opened, for the first time, before the gaze and understanding of the half-affrighted and deep-throbbing heart of that gentle girl. The veil which had concealed its burning mysteries was torn away in an instant. The key to its secret places was in her hands, and she was bewildered with her own discoveries. Her cheeks alternated between the pale and crimson of doubt and hope. Her lips quivered convulsively, and an unbidden but not painful suffusion overspread the warm brilliance of her soft fair cheeks. She strove, ineffectually, to speak; her words came forth in broken murmurs; her voice had sunk into a sigh; she was dumb. The youth once more took her hand into his, as, speaking with a suppressed tone, and with a measured slowness which had something in it of extreme melancholy, he broke silence:-- "And have I no answer, Edith--and must I believe that for either of us there should be other loves than those of childhood--that new affections may usurp the place of old ones--that there may come a time, dear Edith, when I shall see an arm, not my own, about your waist; and the eyes that would look on no prospect if you were not a part of it, may be doomed to that fearfullest blight of beholding your lips smiling and pressed beneath the lips of another?" "Never, oh never, Ralph! Speak no more, I beseech you, in such language. You do me wrong in this--I have no such wish, no such thought or purpose. I do not--I could not--think of another, Ralph. I will be yours, and yours only--if you really wish it." "If I wish! Ah! dear Edith, you are mine, and I am yours! The world shall not pass between us." She murmured-- "Yours, Ralph, yours only!" He caught her in his passionate embrace, even as the words were murmured from her lips. Her head settled upon his shoulder; her light brown hair, loosened from the comb, fell over it in silky masses. Her eyes closed, his arms still encircled her, and the whole world was forgotten in a moment;--when the door opened, and a third party entered the room in the person of Colonel Colleton. Here was a catastrophe! CHAPTER IV. A RUPTURE--THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.