Alan’s face flushed like her own. “Then you love me,” he cried, all on fire. “And you deign to tell me so; O Herminia, how sweet you are. What have I done to deserve it?” He folded her in his arms. Her bosom throbbed on his. Their lips met for a second. Herminia took his kiss with sweet submission, and made no faint pretence of fighting against it. Her heart was full. She quickened to the finger-tips. There was silence for a minute or two—the silence when soul speaks direct to soul through the vehicle of touch, the mother-tongue of the affections. Then Alan leaned back once more, and hanging over her in a rapture murmured in soft low tones, “So, Herminia, you will be mine! You say beforehand you will take me.” “Not _will_ be yours,” Herminia corrected in that silvery voice of hers. “_Am_ yours already, Alan. I somehow feel as if I had always been yours. I am yours this moment. You may do what you would with me.” She said it so simply, so purely, so naturally, with all the supreme faith of the good woman, enamoured, who can yield herself up without blame to the man who loves her, that it hardly even occurred to Alan’s mind to wonder at her self-surrender. Yet he drew back all the same in a sudden little crisis of doubt and uncertainty. He scarcely realised what she meant. “Then, dearest,” he cried tentatively, “how soon may we be married?” At sound of those unexpected words from such lips as his, a flush of shame and horror overspread Herminia’s cheek. “Never!” she cried firmly, drawing away. “Oh, Alan, what can you mean by it? Don’t tell me, after all I’ve tried to make you feel and understand, you thought I could possibly consent to _marry_ you?” The man gazed at her in surprise. Though he was prepared for much, he was scarcely prepared for such devotion to principle. “O Herminia,” he cried, “you can’t mean it. You can’t have thought of what it entails. Surely, surely, you won’t carry your ideas of freedom to such an extreme, such a dangerous conclusion!” Herminia looked up at him, half hurt. “Can’t have thought of what it entails!” she repeated. Her dimples deepened. “Why, Alan, haven’t I had my whole lifetime to think of it? What else have I thought about in any serious way, save this one great question of a woman’s duty to herself, and her sex, and her unborn children? It’s been my sole study. How could you fancy I spoke hastily, or without due consideration on such a subject? Would you have me like the blind girls who go unknowing to the altar, as sheep go to the shambles? Could you suspect me of such carelessness?—such culpable thoughtlessness?—you, to whom I have spoken of all this so freely?” Alan stared at her, disconcerted, hardly knowing how to answer. “But what alternative do you propose, then?” he asked in his amazement.