“Oh, why should you kneel to me?” she said. “Do you think it needs _that_?” While he, more happy than ever he had been in his life, alarmed, disturbed, shaken out of all his habits and traditions, held her fast, like a new-found treasure, and lavished every tender word upon her that language could supply. He owed her a million apologies, of not one of which Lottie was conscious. How could it have been possible for her to suppose that even for a second, in his inmost thoughts, he had been less than reverent of her? And he--had he meant any harm! He did not think he had meant any harm; yet how, in the name of heaven, was he to marry--how was he to marry--in his present circumstances? While he was pouring out upon Lottie his love and worship, telling her how she had gathered to herself day by day all his thoughts and wishes, this question rose up again in his heart. “I know,” said Lottie, very low--her voice still trembling with the first ecstasy of feeling. It was like the dove’s voice, all tenderness and pathos, coming out of her very heart. “I guessed it long--oh, long ago----” “How did you do that? Whisper, darling--tell me--when did you first think----?” Is not this the A B C of lovers? and yet her tone implied a little more than the happy divining of the easy secret. She laughed softly--a variety of music in his ear--the two faces were so close. “You did not think I knew anything about it. I saw you--looking up at my window--the very night of the wedding. Do you remember?” Again Lottie’s low happy laugh broke into the middle of her words. “I could not think what it meant. And then another time before I knew you--and then---- You did not suppose I saw you. I could not believe it,” she said, with a soft sigh of content. Laugh or sigh, what did it matter, they meant the same: the delight of a discovery which was no discovery--the happy right of confessing a consciousness which she dared not have betrayed an hour ago--of being able to speak of it all: the two together, alone in all the world, wanting nothing and no one. This was what Lottie meant. But her disclosures struck her lover dumb. What would she say if she knew his real object then? A prima donna who was to make his fortune--a new voice to be produced in an opera! He shuddered as he drew her closer to him, with terror--with compunction, though he had meant no harm. And he loved her now if he did not love her then; with all his heart now--all the more tenderly, he thought, that she had mistaken him, that she had been so innocently deceived. By this time it had got dark, though they did not observe it; yet not quite dark, for it is rarely dark out of doors under the free skies, as it is within four walls. It was Lottie who suddenly awoke to this fact with a start.