"Before you go, my darling," said St. Leon, suddenly, "there is one thing I should like to hear you say." "Tell me what it is," she answered. He took both her trembling hands in his and looked deep into her eyes with a piercing gaze that seemed to read her soul. "Lift up your head, Beatrix, look straight into my eyes, and say, 'St. Leon, I love you.'" Blushing "celestial, rosy red," she obeyed his fond command, and there was a depth of pathos and passion in her voice of which she was herself unconscious. "St. Leon, I love you," she repeated from the depths of her adoring heart. "My darling!" he caught her in his arms and strained her eagerly to his breast. "Forgive me for calling out your blushes so, but they are more lovely than your roses. Now good-night, my little love, but do not speak another word. Let those last sweet words live in my memory to-night." He kissed her and put her gently from him, then stood at the door to watch the little white figure going lightly along the hall and up the wide polished stairway. "Mine, mine, my little love!" he murmured, gladly. "How pleased and happy my mother will be!" He went back into the room, threw himself down into a chair, and, true to his word, spent the remaining hours of the night in a happy vigil, dreaming over the sweet, new happiness which had come to him so strangely when his heart had been weighed down by despair. And Laurel Vane! She kept a wakeful vigil, too. Her eyes were not so bright as they should have been next morning, her cheeks and lips were not so rosy, but her beauty was as marked as ever, and Count Fitz John was very loath to follow the angry, disappointed widow back to New York that day. "I not only found an Eden but an Eve!" he said to Maud, rather disconsolately. "You need not vex your heart over her, for she has found her Adam in St. Leon Le Roy," she answered, bitterly. When they were gone, St. Leon sought his mother. "Congratulate me," he said. "The desire of your heart will be granted. I am about to marry." Her handsome, proud old face did not look as bright as he had expected. "You have chosen Maud Merivale again?" she said, and then he understood the shadow on her face and the tone of regret in her voice. "You are still prejudiced against Maud!" he said, quietly. "I have never forgiven her for the slight she put upon my son!" she answered, gravely. Laurel's slim young figure went flitting past the open door at that moment. He called to her, drew the small hand through his arm, and led her up to his mother. "Mother, here is your daughter," he said, with the brightest smile she had ever seen on his darkly handsome face. "And Cyril Wentworth?" she asked, blissful, but bewildered. "I have never loved him. It was only fancy. I have broken with him forever!" answered the girl.