"Well! Am I not poor also? I can only offer you a caravan! Come, Meg, will you be a poor man's wife? You do not speak. They say that silence gives consent. Meg, dearest wife!" He drew her unresistingly towards him, and with flushed cheeks and bright eyes she lay passively in his arms. He bent down to whisper-- "Will you be my wife, Meg?" She looked up into his face, but uttered no word. Nor was speech needed, for he saw in her eyes the answer he desired. There, in the lonely Gates of Dawn, where he had first met her, did he touch her lips with his own. A great joy filled the hearts of both. Emotion rendered them dumb, and they could only look silently into one another's eyes. "Meg, my darling wife!" "Dan!" "Remember, I am a poor wanderer, and you will have a hard life!" "Not if it is passed with you," she whispered. "I haven't even a name!" "Take mine. I love you, Dan! I did not know it till Miss Linisfarne spoke. Then, when I thought you were to be hers, I felt angered. I knew then that you were everything to me. In a single moment the whole of my life seemed to change, and all because I love you." "My darling!" He kissed her again. But why strive to describe the indescribable? To relate a love episode is foolish. Words are too poor to tell all. It were better to let the reader imagine the looks, and words, and joy of these two. They felt in that moment the perfect happiness which comes but once in a lifetime to man or woman. Earth was heaven, and they the angels who dwelt therein. After a sacred silence, which lasted it seemed ages, Dan was the first to speak. Having gained his end, he was now ready to make confession. "Meg, I have told you a falsehood." She drew away quickly with a startled look in her eyes, and faltered out the first thought in her mind. "Miss Linisfarne?" "No, no; it has nothing to do with Miss Linisfarne. Do not look so shocked. It is not a very dreadful story. Do you know who I am, Meg?" "Yes; you are Dan." "No; I am not Dan. Nor am I poor; nor am I a vagrant. I wooed you as a poor man because I wanted a wife who loved me for myself. You have done so, my dearest, and now I can confess my deception. My name is--can you not guess?" "No. How strangely you speak! Tell me! Who are you?" "Meg, Meg! whom do I resemble?" "Sir Alurde," said she, quickly. Then, with a sudden light breaking in on her mind, "Then he was your ancestor?" "Ah, you have guessed my secret. Yes, Meg, my real name is Francis Breel." "Lord Ardleigh!" "Precisely. And you, my dearest, who took poor Dan for his own worth, will be Lady Ardleigh of Farbis Court." CHAPTER XXVII. THE THIRD LETTER TO A LONDON FRIEND.