"But I knew what a good honest fellow he was, and I determined to become his friend. Alas! his friendship for me, because he intended to consult me and tell me what he had discovered, cost him his life." "Ah no!" she cried, "do not recall that. It is all too terrible--too terrible!" "I know what a blow it was for you," I went on madly. "I suffered all your poignant grief because I loved you--" "No, no?" "Let me finish--let me tell you, Asta, now, once and for all, what I feel and what is in my heart. I knew that, with memories of poor Guy still upon you, that you could care nothing for me--perhaps barely like me. I know that at first you almost felt you hated me, yet I have kept my secret to myself, and I have loved you, Asta--loved you better than mere words of mine can tell." And I bent and drew her gently to me. She made no response. Only she looked at me swiftly, and a long sigh escaped her lips. "In all my life I have never loved any woman but you--so long as I live I never shall," I declared, in a fervent voice. "If you are not my wife, Asta, then no other woman will ever be. I could not speak before--I dared not. I could not think that you even liked me, and I should have to take time to teach you the sweet lesson I longed to teach you. But to-night, my beloved, I have thrown hesitation to the winds. Now that you are to live, I have told you--I ask you, my love, to be my wife!" "And I--I thought--" "Yes," I said, tightening my hold upon her hand and placing my arm softly about her neck. "I--I never thought that you loved me," she said suddenly. But the look in her splendid eyes, the tone of her voice, the rare sweet smile which parted her lips in sheer gladness, unconsciously shown at my confession, told me more than a whole volume of words could have told me. And slowly my lips met hers in a long kiss--a long, long kiss of ecstatic love--a kiss that changed my whole life from that moment. "I love you, dearest. I love you with all my soul," I said, looking down at the pale, thin little face that rested upon my shoulder as she lay. "You love me?" Her words were scarcely a breath, but I heard them clearly enough in the silence of the room. "I love you," I repeated, with fervour and simplicity. "I love you, Asta, as I have never loved, and as I shall never love again. But you-- it is of you that I have had the doubt; it is your love that I have feared I might not yet have won. Have you nothing to say to me? You rest here in my arms. You have let me kiss your lips--" Through the room there sounded a half laugh, half sob that silenced me. Two soft arms wound themselves about my throat and lay softly there; two sweet tear-dimmed eyes looked straight into mine with something in their depths that held me silent for sheer joy; and two warm lips lifted to mine gave me back, shyly, one out of my many caresses.