'I don't know that I quite know myself,' she says, wearily. 'But look at the river. It is very old, isn't it? I imagine how, when it began to flow, the big primeval world, with its forests and monsters, was about it--ages upon ages--and then came men and their inventions--huts and houses, and castles, and palaces, and cities, rising and falling as the river flows on, the old, old river. And sometimes I think of the dead it has hidden, of the tragedies it has seen, of the miseries it has stilled. And _it_ is always the same; smiling in the sunlight, sleeping in the shadow, making pictures of the trees and flowers on its banks. Could one hope to like that?' 'But we do not see what the river does, Grace.' 'Some of us do. We carry in our hearts the passion and pain of the past. I had rather not, much rather. Sometimes I feel as if it would kill me, and then I long to be as this water is, smiling and insensible. But when they have touched you once,' says the girl, her voice vibrating strangely, 'you know that you can never be as you have been; never, never!' She turns her back to the river. 'Come back to the house,' she says abruptly. 'I hear my sisters laughing.' 'Must you go? Will you not give me two or three moments? I have so much to say to you. So much' (smiling a little piteously) 'that I scarcely know where to begin. Grace, dearest, my life is flowing on like the water in the river, and this little hand of yours can turn it whatever way it pleases.' 'Hush, hush!' says Grace. 'You must not say such things.' 'I must, for it is true. Grace! Grace! I love you.' He pauses. The light of the moon is veiled by clouds, so that he cannot see her face; but she is silent, and silence sometimes means more than speech. 'I am not worthy of you'--his words leap out fervently--'so unworthy that it is little short of madness to imagine you might care for me. But I love you. I know'--with a catching back of the breath--'there is nothing strange in that. Everyone who has seen you must love you. But I think--I think--no one will ever love you as I do. My heart, my soul, my life; everything I have and am are yours, if you will only take them.' And here suddenly he stops, the eloquent words frozen on his lips. Grace has covered her face with her hands. 'What is it?' he whispers very low. He would draw one of those little hands down and cover it with kisses; but he dares not. In the next instant he is trembling. She has lifted her sad eyes; she is looking at him, looking at him--oh, God!--with the very eyes of his vision. 'I wish you had told me this before,' she says, brokenly. 'Is it only now you know that you love me?' 'No, no. I have known it always, the first moment I saw you. But why, in the name of heaven, do you ask me such a question?' 'It was a foolish question'--she is trying hard to speak calmly. 'Forget it.' 'I cannot, Grace; for pity's sake tell me!'