‘I will take you, dear,’ she said gently, ‘with all your faults, whatever their number. I have a feeling that I can trust you--all the more, perhaps, because you do not praise yourself. We will try to do our duty to each other, and to our dead benefactor, and to use his wealth nobly, shall we not, John?’ ‘_You_ will use it, nobly, love; you can do nothing that is not noble,’ he answered, gravely. He was pale to the lips, and there was no gladness in his look, though it was full of love. CHAPTER X. ENGAGED. John Treverton stayed at the Manor-house till after dark, alone with his betrothed, and happier than he had ever been in his life. Yes, happy, though it was with a desperate happiness as of a child plucking wild flowers on the sunny edge of an abyss. He must have been something less or more than human if he had not been happy in Laura Malcolm’s company to-day, as they sat by the fire in the gloaming, side by side, her head leaning against his shoulder, his arm round her waist, her dark eyes hidden under drooping lids as they gazed dreamily downward at the smouldering logs; the room lit dimly by the fire-glow, grotesque shadows coming and going on the wall behind them, like phantom forms of good or evil angels hovering near them as they sat face to face with fate, the one unconscious of all danger, the other reckless and defiant. Now that the word had been spoken, that they two were pledged to each other to the end of life, Laura let her heart go out to her lover without reserve. She was not afraid to let him see her fondness. She did not seek to make her love more precious to him by simulated coldness. She gave him all her heart and soul, as Juliet gave herself to Romeo. Lips that had never breathed a word of love, now murmured sweetest words in his ear; eyes that had never looked into a lover’s eyes, gazed and lost themselves in the depths of his. Never was lover more innocently or unreservedly adored. If he had been boastful or self-assertive, Laura’s pride would have taken alarm. But his deep humility, and a shadow of melancholy which hung over him even when he seemed happiest, asked for her pity; and a woman is never better pleased with her lover than when he has need of her compassion. ‘And do you really love me, Laura?’ he asked, his face bent over the beautiful head which seemed to have found so natural a resting-place upon his shoulder. ‘If there had been no such thing as my cousin Jasper’s will, and you and I had met in the outside world, do you think I am the man your heart would have chosen?’ ‘That is too abstruse a question in metaphysics,’ she answered, laughingly. ‘I only know that my heart chose you, and that papa’s will--I must call him by the old name--did not influence my choice. Don’t you think that is quite enough for you to know?’ ‘It is all I desire to know, my loveliest. Or not quite all. I should like to know--out of mere idle curiosity--when you first began to think me not altogether despicable.’