Dick Lancaster sprang up, and stood before her.  “Then let me love you” he cried.  “Do not deny me that!  Do not take the life out of me! the soul out of me!  Do not turn me away into utter blackness!  Do not say I shall not love you!”

Olive’s clear, thoughtful eyes were looking into his.  “I believe you love me,” she answered slowly.  “I believe every word you say.  But what I say is also true.  I will admit that I have asked myself if I could love you.  There was a time when I was in great trouble, when I believed that it might be possible for me to marry some one without loving him, but I never thought that about you.  You were different.  I could not have married you without loving you.  I believe you knew that, and so you did not ask me.”

His voice was husky when he spoke again.

“But you do not answer me,” he said.  “You have seen into my very soul.  May I love you?”

She still looked into his glowing eyes, but she did not speak.  It was with herself she was communing, not with him.

But there was something in the eyes which looked into his which made his heart leap, and he leaned forward.

“Olive,” he whispered, “can you not love me?”

Her lips appeared as if they were about to move, but they did not, and in the next moment they could not.  He had her in his arms.

Poor foolish, lovely Olive!  She thought she was so strong.  She imagined that she knew herself so well.  She had seen so much; she had been so far; she had known so many things and people that she had come to look upon herself as the decider of her own destiny.  She had come to believe so much in herself and in her cold heart that she was not afraid to listen to the words of a burning heart! Her heart could keep so cool!

And now, in a flash, the fire had spread!  The coolest hearts are often made of tinder.

Poor foolish, lovely, happy Olive!  She scarcely understood what had happened to her.  She only knew that she had been born and had lived, and had grown, that he might come to her and say he loved her.  What had she been thinking of all this time?

“You are so quick,” she said, as she put back some of her disheveled hair.

“Dearest,” he whispered, “it seems to me as if I had been so slow, so slow, so very slow!”

It was a long time before Captain Asher returned, and when he entered the parlor he found these two still there.  They had been sitting by the window, and when they came forward to meet him Dick’s arm was around the waist of Olive.  The captain looked at them for a moment, and then he gave a shout, and encircled them both in his great arms.

When they were cool enough to sit down and Olive and Dick had ceased trying to persuade the captain that he was not the happiest of the three, Olive said to him:  “I have told Dick everything—­about the air-gun and all.  Of course, he must know it.”