"Oh! David," she said, kissing the hands she held; "how like your old self you are to-night. Your words of hope have filled my soul with joy. Is it your presence alone that has done it, or is it God's, or is it both? A change has come over the very world around us. All is the same, and yet all is different. The stars are brighter. The brook has a sweeter music. There is something of heaven in this intoxicating cup you have put to my lips! I seem to be enveloped by a spiritual presence! Hush! Do you hear voices?" The excitement had been too intense for this sensitive woman to endure with tranquillity. Her heart, her conscience, her imagination had suffered an almost unendurable strain. She flung herself into the arms of her lover and trembled upon his breast, and he held her there until she had regained her composure. "Do you really love me yet?" she asked, at length, raising her face and gazing up into his with an expression in which the simple affection of a little child was strangely blended with the passionate love of an ardent and adoring woman. "Love you!" he cried; "your face has been the last vision upon which I gazed when I fell into a restless slumber, and the first which greeted returning consciousness, when I waked from my troubled dream. My life has been but a fragment since we parted; a part of my individuality seemed to have been torn away. I have always felt that neither time nor space could separate us for--" At that instant the horse which had stood patiently beside them on the bridge, shook his head, rattled his bridle and whinnied. "Poor fellow! I had forgotten all about him in my joy!" said David, starting at the sound, and patting his shoulder. "You have had a hard run, and are tired and hungry. I must get you to the barn and feed you. They will miss you at the stable to-night, but I will send you back to-morrow, or ride you myself, that is if Pepeeta wishes to be rid of me." He said this teasingly, but smiled at her,--a tender and confident smile. "Oh! you shall never leave me again--not for a moment," she cried, pressing his arm against her heart. He paused a moment and looked down as if a new thought had struck him. "What is the matter?" she asked. "Do you think they will welcome me at home?" he said, with a penitence and humility that touched her deeply. "Welcome you home?" she exclaimed; "you do not know them, David. They talk of nothing else. They have sent messages to you in every direction. The door is never locked, and there has never been a night since you disappeared that a candle has not burned to its socket on the sill of your window; what do you think of that? You do not know them, David. They are angels of mercy and goodness. I have been selfish in keeping you so long to myself. Come, let us hasten." Just at that instant a loud halloo was heard--"Pepeeta, Pepeeta, Pepeeta!" "It is Steven--the dear boy! He has missed me. You have a dangerous rival, David."