thed with all that eloquence of jeweled phrase and
daintily turned sentence which had made his writings so famous. For her
sake, too, he sent his imagination traveling through almost untrodden
fields, bringing back exquisite word pictures, and lifting the curtain
before many a landscape of sun-smitten thought. All the music of sweet
imagery and pure bracing idealism thrilled through her whole being. This
was indeed a man to love! And as his speech grew slower, and she heard
again that peculiar trembling in his tone, the meaning of which her
woman's heart so easily interpreted, she began to long for those few
words from him which she felt would be the awakening of a new life in
her. He could not fail to notice even that slight change, and wondering
whether her attention was commencing to flag, he paused and their eyes
met in a gaze full of that deep tragical intensity which marks the birth
between man and woman of any new sensation. The fire which glowed in his
eyes told her of his love as plainly as the dreamy yet expressive light
which gleamed in hers spoke also to him, and when her head drooped
before the gathering passion in his face, and the faint color streamed
into her cheeks, no will of his could keep the words back any longer. He
felt his breath come quickly, and his heart almost stop beating. His
pulses were quickening, and a strange new delight stole through him.
Surely this was the end. He could bear no more.

And it seemed as though it were indeed so, for with a sudden impulse he
caught hold of her white, ringless hand, and drew it gently toward him.
There was a slight instinctive resistance which came and went in a
space of time only a thought could measure. Then she yielded it to him,
and the sense of her touch stole through his veins with a sort of dreamy
fascination, to give place in a moment to the overmastering fire of his
great passion.

Her face was turned away from him, but he saw the faint color deepen in
her cheeks and the light quivering of the lip. And then a torrent of
feeling, before which his last shaking barriers of resistance crumbled
away like dust, swept from his heart, striking every chord of his nature
with a crash of wild music.

"Helen, my love, my love!" he cried.

And she turned round, her eyes dim with trembling tears, yet glowing
with a great happiness--turned around to feel his arms steal around her
and hold her clasped to his heart in a mad sweet embrace. And it seemed
to he