"Many--most people would say so, who were not in love. I cannot reason or argue about it. I only know that I cannot face the idea of life without you. Nor shall anything turn me from my determination to win you, except your own distinct rejection." "Is it possible you feel all this--and for me?" exclaimed Ella, stepping back and raising her great, deep, blue, wondering eyes to his. "I loved you from the hour we first met," said Wilton, passionately. "For God's sake! do not speak so coldly. Are you utterly indifferent to me? or have you met some one you can love better?" "Neither," she replied, still looking earnestly at him. "I never loved any one. I have often thought of loving, and feared it! it is so solemn. But how could I love you? I have always liked to meet you and speak to you, still I scarcely know you; and though to me such things are folly, I know that to you and to your class there seems a great gulf fixed between us--a gulf I never dreamed you would span." "I do not care what the gulf, what the obstacle," cried Wilton, again possessing himself of her hand; "I only know that no woman was ever before necessary to my existence; high or low, you are my queen! Do not think I should have dared to express my feelings so soon, but for the enormous difficulty of seeing you--of meeting you. Then I feared that you might drift away from me. I am not wanting in pluck; but, by heaven! I never was in such a fright in my life as the other night when I began to speak to you." A sweet smile stole round Ella's lips and sparkled in her eyes as he spoke. "Ah! you are not going to be inexorable," he continued, watching with delight this favorable symptom; "if you are heart-whole I do not quite despair." "Colonel Wilton," she replied, again drawing away her hand, "take care you are not acting on a mere impulse." "You speak as if I were a thoughtless, inexperienced boy," he interrupted, impatiently. "You forget that I was almost a man when you were born; and as to reflecting, I have never ceased reflecting since I met you. Believe me, I have thought of everything possible and impossible, and the result is you must be my wife, unless you have some insuperable objection." "Oh, let me speak to you," she exclaimed, clasping her hands imploringly; "speak out all my mind, and do not be offended, or misinterpret me." "I will listen to every syllable, and stand any amount of lecturing you choose to bestow; but let us walk on toward the hill; you will take cold standing here." They moved on accordingly, Ella speaking with great, though controlled, animation--sometimes stopping to enforce her words with slight, eloquent gestures. Wilton's heart in his eyes, listening with his whole soul, slowly and meditatively pulling out his long moustaches.