He went on, watching her colour change with the musical variations of his voice, until he came to the verse-- "I told her how he pined,--and ah The deep, the low, the pleading tone In which I sang another's love Interpreted my own." He saw her breast heaving with agitation, and throwing away the book, he bent down beside her, and looked up into her deep eyes, and said, "Oh, Eva, what need of concealment? You have read it long ago, have you not? I love you, Eva, love you so passionately--you cannot tell the depth of my love. Do you return it, Eva?" he said as he gained possession of her hand. She had won him then--the dream of her latter life. This was the noble Julian kneeling at her side. She trembled for very joy, and whispered--"Oh, Julian, Julian, do you not see that I loved you from the first day we met?" She regretted the speech the next moment, as though it had been wanting in maidenly reserve, but it was the first warm natural utterance of her heart; and Julian sprang up in an ecstasy of joy, and as she rose he claimed as his due a lover's kiss. She blushed crimson, but suffered him to sit down beside her; and they sat, hardly knowing anything but the great fact that they loved each other, till Mr Kennedy's voice had ceased in the adjoining room, and he came in. "Oh, there you are," he said. "Edward is sinking to sleep. How good of you to be so quiet!" They rose up, and Julian led her to him with her hand in his, and his arm supporting her. "Mr Kennedy," he said, "I am going to ask you for the most priceless jewel you possess." "What? Is it indeed so? Ah, you wicked Julian, do not rob me of Eva yet. She is too young; and now that Edward seems likely to be ill so long--ah, me! I am bereaved of my children. Well, well, I suppose it must be so. Come here, darling, to the old father you are going to desert; I daresay Julian won't grudge me one kiss." He kissed her tenderly, and she clung about his neck as she whispered, "But it will not be yet for a long long time, papa." "What youth calls long, my Eva; but not long for those who are walking into the shadow down the hill." O happy, happy lovers! how gloriously that night did the stars shine out for you in the deep, unfathomable galaxies of heaven, and the dew fall, and the moon dawn into a sky yet flushed with the long-unfading purple of the fading day! Yet there was sadness mixed with their happiness as they heard, until they parted, the plaintive murmurs of Kennedy's fitful sleep, and thought of all the sufferings of their brother, and how nearly, how very nearly, he had been hurried from the midst of them by self-inflicted death. CHAPTER THIRTY. REPENTANCE. "This world will not believe a man repents, And this wise world of ours is mainly right For seldom does a man repent, and use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and nature wholly out of him, And make all clean, and plant himself afresh." Tennyson's _Idylls_.