"I will go now," she said, in a hollow voice, and, with a heart that lay heavy and burning like heated lead in her bosom, she left the room. Young Farnham followed her, pale and anxious. "Isabel, sweet Isabel! you cannot be in earnest!" "Miserably in earnest!" she answered, staggering blindly forward, for a faintness crept over her. He caught her in his arms. "I knew--I knew it could not be! you have no strength to put this cruel threat in force against me." "Don't--oh! don't, I am faint, my heart is breaking--let me go while I can!" She clung to him as she spoke, and rested her head wearily on his shoulder, as he strained her closer to his heart. "Oh, my Isabel, you love me, you have told me so now for the first time, with the very lips that renounce me for ever. You love me, Isabel!" "You felt it--before this you knew it," she murmured amid her tears. "Yes, yes, I felt it; what need has the heart of words? I felt it truly, as now; but the sound is so sweet from your lips. Isabel; say it again." "Yes, why not, as we shall part so soon. I love you, oh, how much I love you!" "Then stay with me." "No, no!" "I can and will protect you from every annoyance. Stay with me, Isabel!" "Oh, if I could--if I only could!" cried the young creature, looking wistfully at him, "but that terrible, terrible oath." "Forget it--the oath, if you made one, was an act of frenzy--cast it aside as such. You can, you will, my beloved. A little time, a little patience, and all will be well. Come, come, stop crying, my heart aches to see your tears. Be comforted, and say once more that you love me." "I do, I do!" "And that you will never leave me?" She drew a deep, unsteady breath; her eyes began to brighten through their tears; he held her close to his breast, and pressed his lips, quivering with an ecstasy of love, upon her forehead. "You will stay--you _will_ stay!" She released herself gently from his arms, her eyes were flooded with tenderness, her cheeks lighted up with a glow of joyous shame. With that graceful homage which comes so naturally to the heart of a loving woman, she took his hand and pressed it to her lips, and stood drooping beneath the overflow of tenderness that filled her heart, as a flower bends on its stock when loaded with honey-dew. But this beautiful submission did not satisfy him; he encircled her again with his arm. "Tell me in words, dearest--tell me in words, consenting words, or I shall gather them from your lips." Blushing and agitated, she attempted to withdraw from his arms, but softly as a bird moves in its nest. "Speak, Isabel--speak, and promise me!" Her eyes were filled with tears, and her face burned with blushes; where was her pride, where all her haughty resolutions now? Her lips trembled apart, and the words he coveted were forming upon them--but that instant the door opened, and Mrs. Farnham looked through, regarding them with a cold sneer.