"Ella--may I dare to call you so?--I could not go away without telling you how I love you, without telling you that I have loved you from the moment I first set eyes on you that evening last year at Mrs. Carlyon's, and that I can never cease to love you while I live! I could not go away--Ella, I _could_ not--without asking you whether I may come and claim you as my wife when I return." He held both her hands by this time, and was gazing down fondly into her face. She had turned very pale when he first began to speak, but by the time he had done two blush-roses burned in her cheeks. Tremors of love, and joy, and happiness unspeakable thrilled her heart. She was standing with downcast eyes, and she stood thus for a little while after he had ceased speaking. Her breath came and went quickly, the tears were rising. Another moment and she had lifted her glance to his. Her lips were quivering with emotion, but from her eyes, love--love not to be mistaken for anything else--looked out at Conroy through a mist of tears. Not one word did she say; there was no necessity to say it. That one look told Conroy all he cared to know. He folded her in his arms, he pressed his lips to hers, he whispered words in her ears sacred to her alone. As they were walking slowly back arm in arm through the park, Conroy broke the thrilling silence. "Do you know, cara mia, what the world will call me? It will brand me as a fortune-hunter, and say that I should never have sought you for my wife had you not been the mistress of Heron Dyke." The words sent a shock through her, like a dart. Was she the mistress of Heron Dyke? She was not, if there were truth in what Hubert Stone had declared to her. Her lover's constancy might be put to the test before long in a way he little dreamed of now. "You can afford to smile at anything the world may choose to say," she answered. "So can I so long as I have vanity enough to think that you care for me for myself alone." "But that I had the fear of your broad acres before my eyes I should have spoken to you long ere this," he answered. "Had your uncle been a poor man, or you not his heiress, I should have asked you at his hands last autumn." How sweet the words sounded to her--how true was their ring!--and after what that other man had said! "Suppose that when you return from Spain, you should find that I am no longer mistress of Heron Dyke!" she cried impulsively. "Suppose you should find that, by some mischance or other, I am poor instead of rich? What would you say then to your intended wife?"