ould have done so.

"A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound
When the suspicious head of theft is stopped."

"If so," said he, again taking her hand, "this story they have told
me is untrue."

"What story, Daniel?" But she withdrew her hand quickly as she asked
him.

"Nay;--it is mine; it shall be mine if you love me, dear. I will
tell you what story. They have said that you love your cousin, Earl
Lovel."

"No;" said she scornfully, "I have never said so. It is not true."

"You cannot love us both." His eye was fixed upon hers, that eye to
which in past years she had been accustomed to look for guidance,
sometimes in joy and sometimes in fear, and which she had always
obeyed. "Is not that true?"

"Oh yes;--that is true of course."

"You have never told him that you loved him."

"Oh, never."

"But you have told me so,--more than once; eh, sweetheart?"

"Yes."

"And it was true?"

She paused a moment, and then gave him the same answer, "Yes."

"And it is still true?"

She repeated the word a third time. "Yes." But she again so spoke
that none but a lover's ear could have heard it.

"If it be so, nothing but the hand of God shall separate us. You
know that they sent for me to come here." She nodded her head. "Do
you know why? In order that I might abandon my claim to your hand.
I will never give it up. But I made them a promise, and I will keep
it. I told them that if you preferred Lord Lovel to me, I would at
once make you free of your promise,--that I would offer to you such
freedom, if it would be freedom. I do offer it to you;--or rather,
Anna, I would have offered it, had you not already answered the
question. How can I offer it now?" Then he paused, and stood
regarding her with fixed eyes. "But there,--there; take back your
word if you will. If you think that it is better to be the wife of a
lord, because he is a lord, though you do not love him, than to lie
upon the breast of the man you do love,--you are free from me." Now
was the moment in which she must obey her mother, and satisfy her
friends, and support her rank, and decide that she would be one of
the noble ladies of England, if such decision were to be made at
all. She looked up into his face, and thought that after all it was
handsomer than that of the young Earl. He stood thus with dilated
nostrils, and fire in his eyes, and his lips just parted, and his
head erect,--a very man. Had she been so minded she would not have