ay not offer again. There is no time to waste in idle
converse. I must at once to the object of my visit."

"Aurore!" I said, "it is the first time we have met alone. I have
longed for this interview. I have a word that can only be spoken to you
alone."

"To me alone, Monsieur! What is it?"

"_Aurore, I love you_!"

"Love _me_! Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible!"

"Ah! more than possible--it is _true_. Listen, Aurore! From the first
hour I beheld you--I might almost say before that hour, for you were in
my heart before I was conscious of having seen you--from, that first
hour I loved you--not with a villain's love, such as you have this
moment spurned, but with a pure and honest passion. And passion I may
well call it, for it absorbs every other feeling of my soul. Morning
and night, Aurore, I think but of you. You are in my dreams, and
equally the companion of my waking hours. Do not fancy my love so calm,
because I am now speaking so calmly about it. Circumstances render me
so. I have approached you with a determined purpose--one long resolved
upon--and that, perhaps, gives me this firmness in declaring my love. I
have said, Aurore, that I love you. I repeat it again--_with my heart
and soul, I love you_!"

"Love _me_! poor girl!"

There was something so ambiguous in the utterance of the last phrase,
that I paused a moment in my reply. It seemed as though the sympathetic
interjection had been meant for some third person rather than herself!

"Aurore," I continued, after a pause, "I have told you all. I have been
candid. I only ask equal candour in return. _Do you love me_?"

I should have put this question less calmly, but that I felt already
half-assured of the answer.

We were seated on the sofa, and near each other. Before I had finished
speaking, I felt her soft fingers touch mine--close upon them, and press
them gently together. When the question was delivered, her head fell
forward on my breast, and I heard murmuring from her lips the simple
words--"_I too from the first hour_!"

My arms, hitherto restrained, were now twined around the yielding form,
and for some moments neither uttered a word. Love's paroxysm is best
enjoyed in silence. The wild intoxicating kiss, the deep mutual glance,
the pressure of hands and arms and burning lips, all these need no
tongue to make them intelligible. For long moments ejaculations of
delight, phrases of tender endearment, were the only wo