‘And that is why your parting look, though you didn’t look at me, Willie, gave me courage to face them. I felt that you would come back to clear yourself, and to triumph over them. Of course I did not know how it would be effected, but I had faith—or perhaps,’ added the girl, dropping her voice, ‘it was love.’ ‘Yes, it was love,’ said the young man, fondling her hand in his own and speaking in the same low tones, while he gazed thoughtfully before him. ‘Love is better than faith, for it endures. What we no longer believe in we despise, but what we have once loved we love always.’ There was silence between them for a little—the lovers’ silence, which is more golden far than that of which philosophy speaks; then he addressed her with a lighter air. ‘And were you really pleased,’ he said, ‘when I brought the deed back and made that old curmudgeon look so foolish?’ ‘Nay, he was no curmudgeon, Willie, and I felt as much for him as I could afford to feel; but your bringing such good news was delightful. It showed that what others prize so highly, such as this man Hemynge’s signature, was for you quite a commonplace possession. It almost seemed that you have only to hold up your finger and beckon to her, as it were, and Good Luck comes to you.’ ‘Then the good luck I have had, and the estimation in which it has caused me to be held by others, makes you happy, Margaret?’ ‘Of course, it makes me proud and pleased,’ she answered earnestly. ‘How can it be otherwise when you are “the talk of the town?” But what gives me the greatest pleasure of all is to see that it has not spoilt you, Willie; that you take it all so quietly and prudently, which shows that you deserve these gifts of Fortune.’ ‘She has more in store for me yet,’ he answered confidently; ‘I feel it—I am sure of it, Maggie!’ ‘But, my dear Willie, are you not talked about enough already, and you but a lad of seventeen? You must be a glutton, a very glutton, for fame.’ ‘I am,’ he answered vehemently, ‘for fame, but not for notoriety only. I wish to be thought well of on my own account—not as the mere channel of another’s thoughts. I have stuff within me which the world shall sooner or later recognise—I swear it!’ Margaret looked at him with amazement. She had hitherto had no great opinion of his talents, as we know; but now either his enthusiasm carried her away with it, or, what was more probable, the atmosphere of love which surrounded him made him appear larger than of old. In her mind’s eye she already beheld him a second Dryden, that monarch of letters of whom she had so often heard her uncle speak. ‘But you will always be the same to me, Willie?’ she murmured timidly. Her humility, perhaps, touched him, for at her words he became strangely agitated, and his face grew pale to the very lips. ‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I must ask _that_ of _you_. Whatever happens, will you never cease to love me?’ ‘Whatever happens, Willie,’ she answered softly, ‘I shall love you more and more.’