She entered the room very gently, and found him standing by the table, with his hands clasped together. "Sweetheart!" he said, as soon as he saw her, calling her by a name which he used to use when they were out in the fields together in Cumberland. "Daniel!" Then he came to her and took her hand. "If you have anything to say, Daniel, you must be very quick, because mamma will come in ten minutes." "Have you anything to say, sweetheart?" She had much to say if she only knew how to say it; but she was silent. "Do you love me, Anna?" Still she was silent. "If you have ceased to love me, pray tell me so,--in all honesty." But yet she was silent. "If you are true to me,--as I am to you, with all my heart,--will you not tell me so?" "Yes," she murmured. He heard her, though no other could have done so. "A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound When the suspicious head of theft is stopped." "If so," said he, again taking her hand, "this story they have told me is untrue." "What story, Daniel?" But she withdrew her hand quickly as she asked him. "Nay;--it is mine; it shall be mine if you love me, dear. I will tell you what story. They have said that you love your cousin, Earl Lovel." "No;" said she scornfully, "I have never said so. It is not true." "You cannot love us both." His eye was fixed upon hers, that eye to which in past years she had been accustomed to look for guidance, sometimes in joy and sometimes in fear, and which she had always obeyed. "Is not that true?" "Oh yes;--that is true of course." "You have never told him that you loved him." "Oh, never." "But you have told me so,--more than once; eh, sweetheart?" "Yes." "And it was true?" She paused a moment, and then gave him the same answer, "Yes." "And it is still true?" She repeated the word a third time. "Yes." But she again so spoke that none but a lover's ear could have heard it.