more anxieties; I know for certain that all must come right! You
love me as I am, Gorgo. I am no dreamer nor poet; but I can look forward
to finding life lovely and noble if shared with you, so long as one--only
one thing is sure. I ask you plainly and truly: Is your heart as full of
love for me as mine is for you? When I was away did you think of me every
day, every night, as I thought of you, day and night without fail?"

Gorgo's head sank and blushes dyed her cheeks as she replied: "I love
you, and I have never even thought of any one else. My thoughts and
yearnings followed you all the while you were away . . . and yet . . .
oh, Constantine! That one thing . . ."

"It cannot part us," said the young man passionately, "since we have
love--the mighty and gracious power which conquers all things! When love
beckon: the whirlwind dies away like the breath from a child's lips; it
can bridge over any abyss; it created the world and preserves the
existence of humanity, it can remove mountains--and these are the most
beautiful words of the greatest of the apostles: 'It is long suffering
and kind, it believes all things, hopes all things' and it knows no end.
It remains with us till death and will teach us to find that peace whose
bulwark and adornment, whose child and parent it is!"

Gorgo had looked lovingly at him while he spoke, and he, pressing her
hand to his lips went on with ardent feeling:

"Yes, you shall be mine--I dare, and I will go to ask you of your father.
There are some words spoken in one's life which can never be forgotten.
Once your father said that he wished that I was his son. On the march, in
camp, in battle, wherever I have wandered, those words have been in my
mind; for me they could have but one meaning: I would be his son--I shall
be his son when Gorgo is my wife!--And now the time has come . . ."

"Not yet, not to-day," she interrupted eagerly. "My hopes are the same as
yours. I believe with you that our love can bring all that is sweetest
into our lives. What you believe I must believe, and I will never urge
upon you the things that I regard as holiest. I can give up much, bear
much, and it will all seem easy for your sake. We can agree, and settle
what shall be conceded to your Christ and what to our gods--but not
to-day; not even to-morrow. For the present let me first carry out the
task I have undertaken--when that is done and past, then. . . . You have
my heart, my love; but if I were to p