ing so much, in striving with my sense of what is due to you, and
must be rendered to you, I have made you suffer what your words disclose
to me? Never, never, before Heaven, have I thought of you but as the
single, bright, pure, blessed recollection of my boyhood and my youth.
Never have I from the first, and never shall I to the last, regard your
part in my life, but as something sacred, never to be lightly thought
of, never to be esteemed enough, never, until death, to be forgotten.
Again to see you look, and hear you speak, as you did on that night when
we parted, is happiness to me that there are no words to utter; and to
be loved and trusted as your brother, is the next gift I could receive
and prize!'

'Walter,' said Florence, looking at him earnestly, but with a changing
face, 'what is that which is due to me, and must be rendered to me, at
the sacrifice of all this?'

'Respect,' said Walter, in a low tone. 'Reverence.

The colour dawned in her face, and she timidly and thoughtfully withdrew
her hand; still looking at him with unabated earnestness.

'I have not a brother's right,' said Walter. 'I have not a brother's
claim. I left a child. I find a woman.'

The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of entreaty
that he would say no more, and her face dropped upon her hands.

They were both silent for a time; she weeping.

'I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,' said Walter, 'even
to tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it is my
sister's!'

She was weeping still.

'If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and
admiring friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to
enviable,' said Walter; 'and if you had called me brother, then, in your
affectionate remembrance of the past, I could have answered to the name
from my distant place, with no inward assurance that I wronged your
spotless truth by doing so. But here--and now!'

'Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so much.
I had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.'

'Florence!' said Walter, passionately. 'I am hurried on to say, what I
thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from my lips.
If I had been prosperous; if I had any means or hope of being one day
able to restore you to a station near your own; I would have told you
that there was one name you might bestow upon--me--a right above all
others, to protect and cherish you--tha