years since that painful and terrible scene had been enacted in the very room where he stood,—­two years since she had confessed by deed and look that she loved him.  Might she not have changed? might she not have struggled for the mastery of this feeling with only too certain success? might she not have learned to regard him with esteem, perchance,—­with friendship,—­sentiment,—­anything but that which he desired or would claim at her hands?  Silence and absence and time are pitiless destructives.  Might they not?  Aye, might they not?  He paced to and fro, with quick, restless tread, at the thought.  All his love and his longing cried out against such a cruel supposition.  He stopped by the side of the bookcase against which she had fallen in that merciless and suffering struggle, and put his hand down on the little projection, which he knew had once cut and wounded her, with a strong, passionate clasp, as though it were herself he held.  Just then he heard a step,—­her step, yet how unlike!—­coming down the stairs.  Where he stood he could see her as she crossed the hall, coming unconsciously to meet him.  All the brightness and airy grace seemed to have been drawn quite out of her.  The alert, slender figure drooped as if it carried some palpable weight, and moved with a step slow and unsteady as that of sickness or age.  Her face was pathetic in its sad pallor, and blue, sorrowful circles were drawn under the deep eyes, heavy and dim with the shedding of unnumbered tears.  It almost broke his heart to look at her.  A feeling, pitiful as a mother would have for her suffering baby, took possession of his soul,—­a longing to shield and protect her.  Tears blinded him; a great sob swelled in his throat; he made a step forward as she came into the room.  “Papa,” she said, without looking up, “you wanted me?” There was no response.  “Papa!” In an instant an arm enfolded her; a presence, tender and strong, bent above her; a voice, husky with crowding emotions, yet sweet with all the sweetness of love, breathed, “My darling! my darling!” as his fair, sunny hair swept her face.

Even then she remembered another scene, remembered her promise; even then she thought of him, of his future, and struggled to release herself from his embrace.

What did he say? what could he say?  Where were the arguments he had planned, the entreaties he had purposed? where the words with which he was to tell his tale, combat her refusal, win her to a willing and happy assent?  All gone.

There was nothing but his heart and its caresses to speak for him.  Silent, with the ineffable stillness he kissed her eyes, her mouth, held her to his breast with a passionate fondness,—­a tender, yet masterful hold, which said, “Nothing shall separate us now.”  She felt it, recognized it, yielded without power to longer contend, clasped her arms about his neck, met his eyes, and dropped her face upon his heart with a long, tremulous sigh which confessed that heaven was won.