She sang [253] with far more feeling than ever before. Her heart was filled with a maiden’s dearest happiness—a deep, reciprocal, unspoken love of limitless depth. Yes, with the unerring divination of a woman, she knew that Vance’s love was wholly hers. There was a love song before her, and under its cover, she would declare her own without restraint. She sang with the rapture of a mountain thrush, in notes so rich, so innocent, so plaintively low, so delightfully thrilling. Vance listened with bated breath. There are pleasures so keen as to be painful. “I am so inferior to her,” he thought, with unselfish humility, “but to live without her is impossible.” Finally she ceased playing and turned toward him with the music of her soul radiant upon her face. A momentary silence followed. “Louise,” [254] said Vance, and there was a tremulous rhythm in his voice, notwithstanding he tried to crush it into naturalness, “it may be news to you, but I can no more help loving you than I can help breathing.” He walked back and forth before the open grate. “Please do not look away from me,” he went on, “as if I were so unworthy—I know that well enough. I would rather love you without hope than have the unselfish devotion of all the other women of the earth at my feet.” She had lifted her hands and covered her face. Her happiness was very great. She fears he would see it, vet he must know it, else she would be miserable. “What I have said,” Vance went on, “may be nothing to you, but it is either life or death to me. To-morrow I shall leave Gold Bluff for ever unless you wish me to remain.” Vance stood before the open grate still and motionless, and when she looked up, she saw his face was white as marble. She rose from the piano with tear-stained cheeks, flushing pink as La France roses with morning dew-drops upon them. She came forward a few steps, and then paused. Her golden wealth of hair [255] reflected the forelight, and made a halo about her girlish face and form. Her full red lips were parted with the tender smile of youth, purity and love. She was thinking, “I am certain of his love; I am sure of mine for him, and I will give myself entirely, yes, wholly into his keeping.” With one hand over her beating heart, she held the other toward Vance. In a moment he was by her side, and raising her hand, pressed it passionately to his lips. In the deliciousness of love’s dream, he led her to a divan and seated himself beside her. His arms stole about her, her head rested on her breast, and there a devout lover’s affection was sealed with love’s first kiss. A moment [256] later the portieres parted, and in the doorway stood the Colonel. His long white hair fell back from his temples, and there was a look of gladness upon his countenance. He lifted up his face toward Heaven, and in tones that were scarcely audible, said: “Such tender and sacred things of earth are sanctified in Heaven.”