a small
part of your life, to me it is everything--everything. Do you
understand? If you forget me or anything of that kind, I could not bear
it. I could not school myself into patience as model women do. I should
come and throw myself into the mill-stream."

"But, my darling, I shall never forget you--never; you are life of my
life. I might live without the air and the sunlight; I might live
without sleep or food, but never without you. I must forget my own soul
before I forget you."

Still the white hands clasped his shoulders and the dark eyes were fixed
on his face.

"You and your love are more than that to me," she said. "I throw all my
life on this one die; I have nothing else--no other hope. Ah, think
well, Lance, before you pledge your faith to me; it means so much. I
should exact it whole, unbroken and forever."

"And I would give it so," he replied.

"Think well of it," she said again, with those dark, earnest eyes fixed
on his face. "Let there be no mistake, Lance. I am not one of the meek
Griselda type; I should not suffer in silence and resignation, let my
heart break, and then in silence sink into an early grave. Ah, no, I am
no patient Griselda. I should look for revenge and many other things.
Think well before you pledge yourself to me. I should never
forgive--never forget. There is time now--think before you seal your
fate and mine."

"I need not think, Leone," he answered, quietly. "I have thought, and
the result is that I pledge you my faith forever and ever."

The earnest, eager gaze died from her eyes, and the beautiful face was
hidden on his breast.

"Forever and ever, sweet," he whispered; "do you hear? in all time and
for all eternity, I pledge you my love and my faith."

The water seemed to laugh as it rippled on, the wind laughed as it bent
the tall branches, the nightingale singing in the wood stopped suddenly,
and its next burst of song was like ringing laughter; the mountains
quivered over the mill-stream, the stars seemed to tremble as they
shone.

"Forever and ever," he repeated. The wind seemed to catch up the words
and repeat them, the leaves seemed to murmur them, the fall of the water
to rhyme with them. "Forever and ever, sweet, I pledge you my love and
my faith; our hearts will be one, and our souls one, and you will give
me the same love in return, my sweet?"

"I give you even more than that," she replied, so earnestly that the
words had a ring of tragedy in them; an