“Cousin Ralph—­Cousin Ralph!” exclaimed the youth with something of his former impetuosity, emphasizing ironically as he spoke the unfortunate family epithet—­“Ah, Edith, you will not understand me—­nor indeed, an hour ago, should I altogether have understood myself.  Suddenly, dear Edith, however, as I read certain passages of that book, the thought darted through my brain like lightning, and I saw into my own heart, as I had never been permitted to see into it before.  I there saw how much I loved you—­not as my cousin—­not as my sister, as you sometimes would have me call you, but as I will not call you again—­but as—­as—­”

“As what?”

“As my wife, Edith—­as my own, own wife!”

He clasped her hand in his, while his head sunk, and his lips were pressed upon the taper and trembling fingers which grew cold and powerless within his grasp.

What a volume was at that moment opened, for the first time, before the gaze and understanding of the half-affrighted and deep-throbbing heart of that gentle girl.  The veil which had concealed its burning mysteries was torn away in an instant.  The key to its secret places was in her hands, and she was bewildered with her own discoveries.  Her cheeks alternated between the pale and crimson of doubt and hope.  Her lips quivered convulsively, and an unbidden but not painful suffusion overspread the warm brilliance of her soft fair cheeks.  She strove, ineffectually, to speak; her words came forth in broken murmurs; her voice had sunk into a sigh; she was dumb.  The youth once more took her hand into his, as, speaking with a suppressed tone, and with a measured slowness which had something in it of extreme melancholy, he broke silence:—­

“And have I no answer, Edith—­and must I believe that for either of us there should be other loves than those of childhood—­that new affections may usurp the place of old ones—­that there may come a time, dear Edith, when I shall see an arm, not my own, about your waist; and the eyes that would look on no prospect if you were not a part of it, may be doomed to that fearfullest blight of beholding your lips smiling and pressed beneath the lips of another?”

“Never, oh never, Ralph!  Speak no more, I beseech you, in such language.  You do me wrong in this—­I have no such wish, no such thought or purpose.  I do not—­I could not—­think of another, Ralph.  I will be yours, and yours only—­if you really wish it.”

“If I wish!  Ah! dear Edith, you are mine, and I am yours!  The world shall not pass between us.”

She murmured—­

“Yours, Ralph, yours only!”

He caught her in his passionate embrace, even as the words were murmured from her lips.  Her head settled upon his shoulder; her light brown hair, loosened from the comb, fell over it in silky masses.  Her eyes closed, his arms still encircled her, and the whole world was forgotten in a moment;—­when the door opened, and a third party entered the room in the person of Colonel Colleton.