uined. _Nothing_ could ruin
_you_. It is not in the power of fate to ruin a man like
YOU. And if you loved me when you first met my eyes it was
because you read in them the soul that was created yours! And if these
eyes have haunted you ever since it was because this soul has been always
longing, yearning, aspiring towards yours!" And she dropped her face in
her hands and wept for pure joy.

"Salome, Salome, can this be indeed true? Can I have been so blessed? Am
I indeed so happy? Then is this abundant compensation for all that I have
lost in this world! Heavenly consolation for all I have suffered on
earth! Speak again, oh, my dearest! Tell me once more, for I can scarcely
realize my happiness! Speak again, beloved, for your words are life to
me!" he exclaimed, with profound emotion.

"Yes, I will tell you all!" she said, wiping away her joyful tears and
looking up. "I will tell you everything for it is your right! You have
made me so happy to-day! I loved you from the beginning. First, I loved
the magnanimous, self-sacrificing man who, at the age of twenty-one
years, with a brilliant future before him, could renounce all his
prospects to give peace to his father's latter years. I loved you then,
Lord Arondelle, before I knew what manner of man you looked!"

"How blessed, how surely blessed I am in hearing you," he breathed, in
a low and reverent tone.

"Afterward I saw your portrait in Malcolm's Tower at Lone," she
continued, in a soft voice. "And I saw a beauty and a grandeur in the
face and form that seemed the fitting manifestation of a soul like yours.
And I loved you more than ever. My mornings were passed in the tower near
the glory of that picture. But I gazed on it so hopelessly! You were
missing, you were lost to your world! And then I was so plain, so pale,
and dark and gray-eyed. If I should ever be so fortunate as to meet you,
I thought you would never be likely to love me!"

"My consolation! You are most lovely from your spirit, and now you
_know_ that I loved you from my first meeting with you," he
breathed, in a low, earnest tone, pouring his whole soul's devotion
through the gaze that he fixed on her face.

Again her eyes drooped as she murmured:

"If I am lovely in the very least, it must be that my love for you has
made me so; for, even then, when I had only heard your story and seen
your portrait, I loved you so, that I could not think of marriage with
any other man."

"And that was the r