e could honestly and tenderly pity the man whom she
loved for his grief at the loss of the woman whom he had preferred to
herself. She did, however, refrain, and Sebastian could only guess at
her impulse. But he made a tolerably accurate guess, though he seemed
to see nothing. He knew that his way was smooth before him, and that
he need not give himself a moment's trouble about the ending. And
though, as a rule, a man likes the excitement of doubt and the
sentiment of difficulties to be overcome, still there are times when,
if he is either very weary or too self-complacent to care to strive,
he is glad to be assured that he has won before he has wooed, and has
only to claim the love that is waiting for him. Which was what Mr.
Dundas felt now when he noted the simplicity with which Josephine
showed her heart while believing she was hiding it so absolutely, and
knew that he had only to speak to have the whole thing concluded.

"And now I have only half a heart to offer you," he said plaintively:
"the other half is in the grave with my beloved. But if you care to
ally yourself to one who has been the sport of sorrow as I have, if
you care to make the last years of my life happy, and will be content
with the ashes rather than the fires, I will do my best to make you
feel that you have not sacrificed yourself in vain. Will it be
a sacrifice, Josephine?" he asked in a lower tone, and with the
exquisite sweetness which love and pleading give to even a commonplace
voice.

"I have loved you all my life," said Josephine simply; and then
dissolving into happy tears she hid her face in his breast and felt
that heaven was sometimes very near to earth.

Sebastian passed his arms round her ample comely form and pressed her
to his heart, tenderly and without affectation. It was pleasant to him
to see her devotion, to feel her love; and though he disliked tears,
as a man should, still tears of joy were a tribute which he did not
despise in essence if the method might have been more congenial.

"Dear Josephine!" he said. "I always knew what a good soul you were."

This was the way in which Sebastian Dundas wooed and won an
honest-hearted English lady who loved him, and who, virtue for virtue,
was infinitely his superior--a wooing in striking contrast with the
methods which he had employed to gain the person of a low-class,
half-savage Spanish girl, whom he had loved for her beauty and who
took him for her pleasure; also in striking