help one to guess them. There is a certain
young man of my acquaintance, who used to have no secrets from me, and
of late he has been a mystery with seven seals; but I doubt if the
truth be really in this wine. I rather think----"

She stopped short, for a sudden perception began to dawn on her mind,
though she could hardly trust herself to admit it. He had raised his
eyes now, and was looking at her with wrapt gaze.

"Helen," he said, "when a man feels choking it is too late to ask him
what strangles him? All I know is, that I shall have to go away, and
leave you--"

"Go away! why, what are you thinking of?"

"You may well ask," he said, in a tone of desperation, without
venturing to look up. "I only know too well, I cannot live without
you."

His words thrilled to her very marrow, she held the wineglass
unconsciously, without seeing how she was spilling the wine.

"That is not what I meant," she said. "What makes you talk so
strangely?"

She would have risen, but he seized her hand so eagerly, that she
dropped the glass.

"Do not go," he cried. "Oh! stay and listen to me! You must. I must
talk so, because it is what I feel, and you must hear it, or it will
kill me. All this time I have felt as if my heart were dead within me.
To me there is nothing in the whole wide world but you. If this island
were to float away, and carry us away where nobody could reach us, you
know you would be mine and I yours to all eternity--you cannot deny
that; and therefore what difference should the world make to us? Can
all the talking and the gossipping in the world, make us one jot more
happy or one jot more wretched? You have nobody to consider; I am what
I always was--a penniless, homeless orphan; for if I have a father
living, I have no desire to see him. Why should we go back to those
people? We might cross the seas together; to any wilderness, where
there is nobody to ask for baptismal certificates, or parish registers;
and there we might be all in all to each other and be happy, and then
we might afford to laugh at a world that would have grudged us our
happiness."

He held her hand tight between both his own, while the words fell from
his lips in burning haste, and his devouring eyes were fastened on her
downcast lashes, or watching the quivering of her parted lips.

She could not speak; her brain was reeling, and her ears ringing. She
could not distinguish every word, but his meaning went straight to her
heart.