the
man to aid and abet you in doing it."

Herminia fixed her piercing eyes upon his face once more. Tears
stood in them now. The tenderness of woman was awakened within
her. "Dear Alan," she said gently, "don't I tell you I have
thought long since of all that? I am PREPARED to face it. It is
only a question of with whom I shall do so. Shall it be with the
man I have instinctively loved from the first moment I saw him,
better than all others on earth, or shall it be with some lesser?
If my heart is willing, why should yours demur to it?"

"Because I love you too well," Alan answered doggedly.

Herminia rose and faced him. Her hands dropped by her side. She
was splendid when she stood so with her panting bosom. "Then you
decide to say good-bye?" she cried, with a lingering cadence.

Alan seized her by both wrists, and drew her down to his side.
"No, no, darling," he answered low, laying his lips against hers.
"I can never say good-bye. You have confessed you love me. When a
woman says that, what can a man refuse her? From such a woman as
you, I am so proud, so proud, so proud of such a confession; how
could I ever cease to feel you were mine,--mine, mine, wholly mine
for a lifetime?"

"Then you consent?" Herminia cried, all aglow, half nestling to his
bosom.

"I consent," Alan answered, with profound misgivings. "What else
do you leave open to me?"

Herminia made no direct answer; she only laid her head with perfect
trust upon the man's broad shoulder. "O Alan," she murmured low,
letting her heart have its way, "you are mine, then; you are mine.
You have made me so happy, so supremely happy."

VI.

Thus, half against his will, Alan Merrick was drawn into this
irregular compact.

Next came that more difficult matter, the discussion of ways and
means, the more practical details. Alan hardly knew at first on
what precise terms it was Herminia's wish that they two should pass
their lives together. His ideas were all naturally framed on the
old model of marriage; in that matter, Herminia said, he was still
in the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity. He took it
for granted that of course they must dwell under one roof with one
another. But that simple ancestral notion, derived from man's
lordship in his own house, was wholly adverse to Herminia's views
of the reasonable and natural. She had debated these problems at
full in her own mind for years, and had arrived at definite a