"Sh, Ned," Betty whispered, touching his arm lightly, "be still a moment, I want to feel this wonderful scene!" The air was sweet with the perfume of apple blossoms, the water from the old wheel fell with silvery echo and ran rippling over the stones into the river. Somewhere above the cliff a negro was playing a banjo and far down the river, beside a little cottage torn with shot and shell, but still standing, a mocking-bird was singing in the lilac bushes. The girl looked at Ned with curious tenderness, and wondered if she had known her own heart after all--wondered if the fierce blinding passion she had once felt for his brother had been the divine thing that links the soul to the eternal? A strange spiritual beauty enveloped this younger man and drew her to-night with new power. There was something restful in its mystery. She wondered vaguely if it were possible to love two men at the same moment. She could almost swear it were. If she had never really loved John Vaughan at all! Why had his powerful, brutal personality drawn her with such terrible power? Was such a force love? It was something different from the tender charm which enveloped the slender straight young figure by her side now. She felt this with increasing certainty. Ned took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. The touch of his lips sent a thrill through her heart. It was sweet to be worshipped in this old-fashioned, foolish way. Whatever her own feeling's might be, this was love--in its divinest flowering. It drew her to-night with all but resistless tug. "May I break the silence now, dearest, to ask you something?" he said softly. "Yes." "Haven't you realized yet that you are going to be mine?" "Not in the way you mean----" "But you are, dearest, you are!" he whispered rapturously. "You love me. You just haven't really faced the thing yet and put it to the test in your heart. War has separated us, that's all. But there's never been a moment's doubt in my soul since I looked into your eyes that night in the old prison. Their light made the cell shine with the glory of heaven! And when you kissed me, dearest----" "You know why I did that, Ned," she murmured. "You're fooling yourself, darling! You couldn't have done what you did, if you hadn't loved me. It came to me in a flash as I held you in my arms and pressed you to my heart. There can be no other woman on earth for me after that moment. I lived a life time with it. Say you'll be mine, dearest?" "But I don't love you, Ned, as you love me----" "I don't ask it now. I can wait. The revelation will come to you at last in the fullness of time--promise me, dearest--promise me!" For an hour he poured into her ears his passionate tender plea, until the rapture of his love, the perfumed air of the spring night, and the shimmer of moonlit waters stole into her lonely heart with resistless charm. She lifted her lips to his at last and whispered: "Yes." CHAPTER XXIX THE PANIC