Wrung as she had been, for weeks, with conflicting emotions, the revulsion of feeling that now came over her was too great for her strength. Her knees tottered beneath her; the room swam before her eyes. “Somehow I feel a little tired,” said she; and she sank down upon a sofa which stood near. Where was all her tact gone? Was she not to unveil his heart while hiding her own? All is fair in love and war; and in both the best-laid schemes are undone by a surprise. The enemy had found the citadel unguarded and rushed in. “Will you allow me?” said he. She made no reply beyond a faint smile, and he took his seat beside her. “You spoke of music just now. Lucy has a charming touch; but I know a voice that is, to me at least, richer than all the harmonies of a symphony, softer than an Æolian harp, gentler than the cooing of a dove.” She made a brave effort to look unconscious. “Oh, how beautiful it must be! How I should like to hear such a voice!” “I hear it now! I am drinking it in!” It was a draught which seemed to intoxicate him; and the circle of the spell which bound them grew narrower. She could feel his eager, frequent breath upon her cheek, whose burning glow lent a more liquid lustre to her dark eyes. They spoke little. What need of multiplying words? Did they not know all? Ah, supremest moment of our lives, and restfullest, when two souls rush together, at last, and are one! Somehow, by chance, just then—if things which always manage to happen can be said to come by chance—somehow their hands met. Met somewhere along the back of the sofa, perhaps—but no matter. Hardly their hands, either. It was the forefinger tip, merely, of his right hand that chanced to rest its weight across the little finger of her left. A taper and a soft and a dainty little finger,—and a weak, withal. Why should it scamper off before it was hurt? After all, it was but an accident, perhaps, and a neighborly sort of accident, at the worst. Who could say that it was a bold, bad forefinger? Perhaps it did not know it was there! And so that weak little digit lay there, still as a mouse, though blushing, blushing (ah me, how it did blush!), and all of a flutter. After all, are not even strangers continually shaking hands? And if that be so, why should one run away, merely because—but the thing is not worth a discussion. I have been much longer in telling it than it was in happening. The thrill had barely flashed through that rose-tipped little digit when he seized her hand, and taking it in both his, pressed it again and again to his heart; then the other; and drawing her towards him, bent over her and breathed into her ear words never to be forgotten. Not many, but strong,—vehement with long-suppressed passion. As though a mountain-torrent had burst its bonds. She had read of innumerable wooings and imagined many besides; but never one like this. She tried to speak, she knew not what, but her tongue refused to do its office.