"Look up, dear. Whatever barrier may have intervened between us has fallen. Look up and hear how I love you." She thrilled as a woman only thrills when her secret soul is moved, and, rising with a certain grand movement, turned her face upon me, glorious with a feeling that not even the dimness of the room could hide. Why, then, did my brain whirl and my heart collapse? It was Gilbertine and not Dorothy who stood before me. IX IN THE LITTLE BOUDOIR Never had a suspicion crossed my mind of any such explanation of our secret troubles. I had seen as much of one cousin as the other in my visits to Mrs. Lansing's house, but Gilbertine being from the first day of our acquaintance engaged to my friend Sinclair, I naturally did not presume to study her face for any signs of interest in myself, even if my sudden and uncontrollable passion for Dorothy had left me the heart to do so. Yet now, in the light of her unmistakable smile, of her beaming eyes from which all troublous thoughts seemed to have fled for ever, a thousand recollections forced themselves upon my attention which not only made me bewail my own blindness, but which served to explain the peculiar attitude always maintained toward me by Dorothy, and many other things which a moment before had seemed fraught with impenetrable mystery. All this in the twinkling of an eye. Meanwhile, misled by my words, Gilbertine drew back a step and with her face still bright with the radiance I have mentioned, murmured in low, but full-toned accents: "Not just yet! it is too soon. Let me simply enjoy the fact that I am free and that the courage to win my release came from my own suddenly acquired trust in Mr. Sinclair's goodness. Last night--" and she shuddered--"I saw only another way--a way the horrors of which I hardly realized. But God saved me from so dreadful, yea, so unnecessary a crime, and this morning--" It was cruel to let her go on, cruel to stand there and allow this ardent if mistaken nature to unfold itself so ingenuously, while I with ear half-turned toward the door, listened for the step of her whom I had never so much loved as at that moment--possibly because I had only just come to understand the cause of her seeming vacillations. My instincts were so imperative, my duty and the obligations of my position so unmistakable, that I made a move as she reached this point, which caused Gilbertine first to hesitate, then to stop. How should I fill up this gap of silence? How tell her of the great, the grievous mistake she had made? The task was one to try the courage of stouter souls than mine. But the thought of Dorothy nerved me; perhaps, also, my real friendship and commiseration for Sinclair.