“Do you believe in the sharpness of woman’s intuition? If there is such a thing, I told Allegra Alliston that I loved her a thousand times during that short ride. Not in words, or by any intent, but--I made a desperate effort to appear natural and unconcerned. There was a rich glow upon her face from walking. I drew the carriage robes around her and asked her if she was dressed warmly enough to ride. I tried to hide my secret, but every motion I made, every word I uttered seemed to give it hopelessly away. I became positively frightened, for it seemed as if at every turn of the carriage wheels I was saying, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’ “As we drew near the little village, Miss Alliston said something about its dulness, and I replied that possibly it might become a populous city some day; that sometimes such places, after long lying in lethargy, were found to possess unsuspected advantages, and sprang into sudden life and importance. “‘But it will be after our time,’ she said, ‘some hundreds of years from now. Where shall we be then?’ “I did not premeditate at all what I said in reply to this. A man who is deeply in love has a tongue that is set on a hair trigger. I talked without knowing what I was saying. “‘If we meet in another sphere, Miss Alliston, and I confess I indulge myself in the perhaps foolish hope that congenial souls will meet and recognize each other hereafter, I shall have something to tell you about this strange and far-distant earth-life. I assume that there will be no such artificial trammels there as to prevent me from speaking to you without fear.’ “‘Oh,’ said she, with the charming audacity that is so characteristic of her, ‘tell me now. A woman, you know, can neither keep a secret, nor rest till she finds one out.’ “‘Tell you!’ I cried, with a sudden burst of vehemence that was almost like anger. ‘I have told you a thousand times. Oh, God! I have tried to hide it, and yet you know as well as if I had shouted it to the hills, that I love you unutterably, that I have never ceased loving you since I first saw you.’ “The reins had fallen from my hands and the horse had stopped in uncertainty. She caught the reins, but strange as it may seem, this burst of vehemence produced something very much like it in her. Her great eyes turned upon me with a blazing light which I had never seen in them before. “‘And you, too!’ she cried, ‘do you blame me for my skill at concealing my heart? Since when has woman been permitted to manifest her feelings toward man in the slightest degree? You could not hide your love because man has always had the liberty to express it. But woman, compelled for ages to stifle every heart-beat, has learned her unnatural lesson too well. Like the stoical Indian she can bear her torture without flinching. But,--but,’ and her splendid voice began to falter, ‘I have loved you none the less.’ And we were both crying.