“Oh, I read you well,” she exclaimed, her arms sinking slowly, while she still looked at him with her proud and glorious smile. “My soul is clairvoyant to-night, and I read you well. Love is strong, but it is chained by honor. You think me the betrothed of Wentworth. Ah, no! Emily is the betrothed of Wentworth, and when he told you otherwise, it was his hasty blunder—no more. John!” she faltered, and her voice grew sweet and low—“you asked me once to tell you of the fairy prince I was to follow through all the world, and I told you I would tell you of him when I found him. I have found him—here!” The word rang from her lips in a fervent and adoring cry, and she was in his arms. One wild, delirious instant, and then the tumult of his joy mounted to his brain, and spread into the stillness of a blissful dream. O solemn ecstasy of prayer and peace! O mystic passion of true love unveiled! The moonlight rested on the noble beauty of their forms, with the dark and rich phantasmal room around them. They saw it not—they knew not where they were. Tranced in the temple of the night, they stood, silent, motionless, filled with ethereal light, as if a rosy star had burst within their being, filled with an all-pervading, holy tenderness. Ended now the strange delusion—the restlessness and pain, the hopeless yearning, the generous grief, the alternate hope and doubt and fleeting joy, the sad renunciation, the selfless and submissive sacrifice, were ended; they had passed away like clouds, and the sweet heavens of love remained. Slowly her head drooped back, and clinging to him yet, her noble face, tranquil and wet with tears, gazed fondly into his. “Beloved Muriel,” he said, and his deep voice was tremulous and low, “I came here sad and dark, and you have filled me with light and life and joy. What am I that I should invoke a love like yours—what am I that it should descend to me so rich in blessing?” “Not so, not so,” she fervently replied. “It is I that am bold, for I have chosen you for my beloved from all living men I know. But I love you. Oh, should I not love you—for you made life sweet to me, you taught me to make life noble! Dear friend so long—my husband now—still help me to make life noble, for I could not love you so much if I did not love the world you live for more. Come; we have much to talk of. Sit here by me.” She sank upon the couch near by, and he took a seat by her side. Silent a little while before their talk began, they sat folded in each other’s arms, the hour of wonder sinking slowly like a subsiding sea, and the moonlight resting peacefully upon them. CHAPTER XXIV. THE BLOWING OF THE ROSE.