She was standing close beside me; her hands hung in front of her, closed over one another; her head was slightly bent forward; her eyes were opened wide, and fixed steadfastly upon the river at the line which we might have traversed; and there was in her face such rapt attention, such deep and all-absorbed meditation, that I saw her interest in this scene was equal to mine. But there was more than interest There was that in her face which showed that the incidents of that journey were now passing before her mind; her face even now assumed that old expression which it had borne when first I saw her--it was white, horror-stricken, and full of fear--the face that had fixed itself on my memory after that day of days--the face of my Lady of the Ice. She did not know that I was looking at her, and devouring her with my gaze. Her eyes wandered over the water and toward the shore. I heard her quick breathing, and saw a sudden shudder pass through her, and her hands clutch one another more tightly in a nervous clasp, as she came to that place where she had fallen last. She looked at that spot on the dark water for a long tame, and in visible agitation. What had taken place after she had fallen she well knew, for I had told it all on my first visit to her house, but it was only from my account that she knew it. Yet here were the visible illustrations of my story--the dark river, the high, precipitous bank. In all these, as in all around, she could see what I had done for her. Suddenly, with a start, she raised her head, and, turning, looked full upon me. It was a wild, eager, wistful, questioning look--her large, lustrous eyes thrilled me through with their old power; I saw in her face something that set my heart throbbing with feverish madness. It was a mute appeal--a face turned toward me as though to find out by that one eager, piercing, penetrating glance, something that she longed to know. At the same time there was visible in her face the sign of another feeling contending with this--that same constraint, and shy apprehension, and timidity, which had so long marked her manner toward me. And now, in that moment, as her face thus revealed itself, and as this glance thrilled through me, there flashed upon my mind in a moment the meaning of it all. There was but an instant in which she thus looked at me--the next instant a flush passed over her face, and her eyes fell, but that very instant I snatched her hand in both of mine and held it. She did not withdraw it She raised her eyes again, and again their strange questioning thrilled through me. "Marion," said I, and I drew her toward me. Her head fell forward. I felt her hand tremble in mine. "Marion," said I--lingering fondly on the name by which I now called her for the first time--"if I ask you to be mine--will you turn away?" She did not turn away.