not_ understand
me--nor indeed, an hour ago, should I altogether have understood myself.
Suddenly, dear Edith, however, as I read certain passages of that book,
the thought darted through my brain like lightning, and I saw into my
own heart, as I had never been permitted to see into it before. I there
saw how much I loved you--not as my cousin--not as my sister, as you
sometimes would have me call you, but as I _will not_ call you
again--but as--as--"

"As what?"

"As my _wife_, Edith--as my own, own wife!"

He clasped her hand in his, while his head sunk, and his lips were
pressed upon the taper and trembling fingers which grew cold and
powerless within his grasp.

What a volume was at that moment opened, for the first time, before the
gaze and understanding of the half-affrighted and deep-throbbing heart
of that gentle girl. The veil which had concealed its burning mysteries
was torn away in an instant. The key to its secret places was in her
hands, and she was bewildered with her own discoveries. Her cheeks
alternated between the pale and crimson of doubt and hope. Her lips
quivered convulsively, and an unbidden but not painful suffusion
overspread the warm brilliance of her soft fair cheeks. She strove,
ineffectually, to speak; her words came forth in broken murmurs; her
voice had sunk into a sigh; she was dumb. The youth once more took her
hand into his, as, speaking with a suppressed tone, and with a measured
slowness which had something in it of extreme melancholy, he broke
silence:--

"And have I no answer, Edith--and must I believe that for either of us
there should be other loves than those of childhood--that new affections
may usurp the place of old ones--that there may come a time, dear Edith,
when I shall see an arm, not my own, about your waist; and the eyes that
would look on no prospect if you were not a part of it, may be doomed to
that fearfullest blight of beholding your lips smiling and pressed
beneath the lips of another?"

"Never, oh never, Ralph! Speak no more, I beseech you, in such language.
You do me wrong in this--I have no such wish, no such thought or
purpose. I do not--I could not--think of another, Ralph. I will be
yours, and yours only--if you really wish it."

"If I wish! Ah! dear Edith, you are mine, and I am yours! The world
shall not pass between us."

She murmured--

"Yours, Ralph, yours only!"

He caught her in his passionate embrace, even as the words were murmured
f