"I have frightened you, my darling," he said, suddenly. "Ah! do forgive me. I was half mad with joy. You do not know how I have longed to tell you this, yet feared--I knew not what--you seemed so far above me, sweet. See, you are trembling now! I am as cruel as a man who catches in his hands a white dove that he has tamed, and hurts it by his grasp. Sit down here and rest, while I tell you over and over again, in every fashion, in every way, how I love you." The sun never shone upon happier lovers than those. The golden doors of Love's paradise were open to them. "I never knew until now," said Vane, "how beautiful life is. Why, Pauline, love is the very center of it; it is not money or rank--it is love that makes life. Only to think, my darling, that you and I may spend every hour of it together." She raised her eyes to the fair, calm heavens, and infinite happiness filled her soul to overflowing; a deep, silent prayer ascended unspoken from her heart. Suddenly she sprang from his side with a startled cry. "Oh, Vane!" she said, with outstretched hands, "I had forgotten that I am unworthy. I can never marry you!" He saw such wild despair in her face, such sudden, keen anguish, that he was half startled; and, kneeling by her side, he asked: "Why, my darling? Tell me why. You, Pauline," he cried--"you not worthy of me! My darling, what fancy is it--what foolish idea--what freak of the imagination? You are the noblest, the truest, the dearest woman in the whole wide world! Pauline, why are you weeping so? My darling, trust me--tell me." She had shrunk shuddering from him, and had buried her face in her hands; deep, bitter sobs came from her lips; there was the very eloquence of despair in her attitude. "Pauline," said her lover, "you cannot shake my faith in you; you cannot make me think you have done wrong; but will you try, sweet, to tell me what it is?" He never forgot the despairing face raised to his, the shadow of such unutterable sorrow in the dark eyes, the quivering of the pale lips, the tears that rained down her face--it was such a change from the radiant, happy girl of but a few minutes ago that he could hardly believe it was the same Pauline. He bent over her as though he would fain kiss away the fast falling tears; but she shrank from him. "Do not touch me, Vane!" she cried; "I am not worthy. I had forgotten; in the happiness of loving you, and knowing that I was beloved, I had forgotten it--my own deed has dishonored me! We must part, for I am not worthy of you." He took both her hands in his own, and his influence over her was so great that even in that hour she obeyed him implicitly, as though she had been a child. "You must let me judge, Pauline," he said, gently. "You are mine by right of the promise you gave me a few minutes since--the promise to be my wife; that makes you mine--no one can release you from it. By virtue of that promise you must trust me, and tell me what you have done."