His first few steps towards her were made at the pace at which drawing-room floors are usually traversed, but the last part of the distance was cleared by a movement considerably more rapid, for she had risen in nervous agitation as he approached, and for the first time that he had ever ventured a caress, he threw his arms around her, and pressed her to his heart. Agnes struggled not to disengage herself, but wept without restraint upon his bosom. "You do then love me, Agnes?... At last, at last our hearts have met, and never can be severed more! But still you must tell me very often that you have forgiven me, dearest, for is it not difficult to believe? And does it not require frequent vouching?" "What is it, Montague, that you would have forgiven?" said Agnes, looking up at him, and smiling through her tears. This was the first time that her lips had pronounced his christian name to any ears but her own, and she blushed as she uttered it. "Agnes! my own Agnes!" he exclaimed, "you have forgiven me, or you would not call me Montague!... How is it possible," he continued, looking fondly at her, "that a word so hackneyed and familiar from infancy as our own name can be made to thrill through the whole frame like a touch of electricity?" He drew her to the sofa from which she had risen, and placing himself by her, said, "Now, then, Agnes, let us sit down soberly together, and take an unvarnished retrospect of all that has passed since we first met.... Yet why should I ask for this?... I hate to think of it ... for it is a fact, Agnes, which his subsequent attachment to your sister must not make you doubt, Frederick and his seven thousand a year would have been at your disposal, had not my dissuasions prevented it.... And had this been so, who knows...." A shade of melancholy seemed once again settling on the noble countenance of Colonel Hubert; Agnes could not bear it, and looking earnestly at him, she said, "Montague! answer me sincerely this one question, which is the strongest feeling in your mind at this moment--the pleasure derived from believing that your influence on Frederick was so great, or the pain of doubting how the offer you speak of would have been received?" "I have no pleasure in believing I have influence on any one, save yourself," he answered gravely. "I am glad of that, Montague," she said, "because you somewhat overrated your influence with my brother elect. Save for your foolish doubts, infidel!... you never should have known it, but ... Frederick Stephenson did propose to me, Hubert, before he went abroad." "And you refused him, Agnes!" "And I refused him, Hubert." "Oh! had I known this earlier, what misery should I have been spared!" cried Colonel Hubert. "You know not, you could not know all I have suffered, Agnes ... yet surely, dearest! when last we spoke together, it was but yesterday, in this very room, you must then have guessed the cause of the dreadful restraint that kept us asunder."