"It certainly was in mine, dear girl," I replied; "but there were other ties to be added, Bessy: the interest you showed in me--your anxiety about me, before the duel with Robert Thornton, and your gentle care and tendance afterwards; but, more than all, your frank kindness, and the courage of your tenderness, were never to be forgotten by me. Bessy, I do not think, if nothing else had happened to link us still more closely together, we could ever have made up our minds to part. But more, much more, has happened since then--how much within the last three days! Our flight together from a terrible fate----" "Your saving me from death a second time," she added. "The strange, close intimacy into which we were thrown during our long wanderings--intimacy such as, perhaps, never before existed between two unmarried persons." "And which you used so nobly," she added. "Oh, Richard, if there were nothing else but your generous, delicate kindness during that night and day--kindness which, while I loved you as a wife, made me trust and rely upon you as a brother--were there nothing but that, I should, I believe, feel myself justified in overleaping barriers which would be insurmountable in other circumstances, and casting away all consideration but of what is due to you." "But my happiness must not be alone consulted," I replied. "Whatever we do must be for your happiness also. Dear Bessy, you have lain and slept in these arms; your head has been pillowed on this bosom; your heart has beat fondly against mine. Now tell me, would you withdraw yourself from that resting-place?" "Oh, no, no, no!" she cried; "never, never! I can never have any other upon earth." And, leaning her head upon my bosom again, she wept. "And will you be perfectly happy here?" I said, putting my arm around her.