She had grown pale; but she tried to smile, to meet the ardent gaze of

his eyes; but she could not.

"Hadn't--hadn't we better be going back?" she faltered; "it is growing

late."

But her voice was so low that she wondered whether she had spoken aloud.

"I want to tell you that I have missed you, how I have longed for you,"

he went on, not speaking with the fluency for which some of his men

friends envied him, but brokenly, as if the words were all inadequate to

express his meaning. "All the way up to London I thought of you--I could

not help thinking of you. All the time I was there, whether I was alone

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or in the midst of a mob of people, I thought of you. I could see your

face, hear your voice. I could not rest day or night. I felt that I must

come back to you; that there would be no peace or contentment for me

unless I could see you, hear you, be near you."

She sat, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes downcast and hidden by the

long dark lashes. Every word he was faltering was making the strangest,

sweetest music in her ears and in her heart. That he should miss

her--want to come back to her!--oh, it could not--could not be true!

"Do you know why?" he went on, looking up at her with a touch of

anxiety, of something like fear in his eyes, for her downcast face told

him nothing; her pallor might only be a sign of fear. "It was because

I--love you."

She trembled, and raised her eyes for one instant; but she could not

meet his--not yet.

"I love you," he said, his voice deepening, so that it was almost

hoarse. "I love you."

Just the three words, but how much they mean! Is it any wonder that the

poet and the novelist are never weary of singing and writing them? and

that the world will never be weary of hearing and reading them? How much

hangs upon the three little words! Love: it is the magic word which

transforms a life. It means a heaven too great for mortals to imagine,

or a hell too deep to fathom. To Nell the words spoke of a mystery which

she could not penetrate, but which filled her heart with a joy so great

as almost to still it forever.

"Dearest, I have frightened you!" he said, as she sat so silent and so

motionless. "Forgive me! It seems so sudden to you; but I--I have felt

it for days past, have known it so long, it seems to me. I have been

thinking, dwelling on it. Nell, do you--care for me? Can you love me?"




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