bent towards her bosom. He took her other hand, and hold ing them both, whispered: "Hannah, look at me."

She turned her head slowly, with a helpless submission, and lifted her face. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and her lovely dark-gray eyes, dimmed by the floods that had gushed from them in spite of herself, met his gaze imploringly. The strong soul of manhood met and conquered the woman in that glance. He read his triumph, but veiled his own consciousness of it-curbed his triumphant happiness, lest she should take alarm. Softly and gently, he stole one arm around her waist and drew her to his breast. The violence of her agitation gradually ceased; then, lifting her head, she withdrew from his clasp, and spoke, very softly and falteringly, with her eyes fixed on the ground:

"Yes, Maxwell, it is as I have feared. I will not say that I love you now, for my heart is disturbed. It is powerless to act for me, in your presence. I have felt and struggled against your power, but you have conquered me. If you love me, pity me also, and make a gentle use of your triumph. Do not bind me by any promise at present. Be satisfied with the knowledge that has come to me that I have been afraid to love you, because I foresaw how easy it would be. Do not ask any thing more of me now. I can bear no more to-day. My strength is gone, and I am weak as a child. Be mag nanimous."

He drew her once more softly to his breast and kissed her lips. There was no resistance, but a timid answering pressure. He kissed her again, with the passionate clinging sweetness of a heart that seals an eternal claim. She tore herself loose from him and cried with a fiery vehemence: "God will curse you if you deceive me now! You have bound me to think of you, day and night, to recall your looks and words, to—oh, Maxwell, to what have you not bound my heart!"

"I would bind you to no more than I give," he answered. "I ask no promise. Let us simply be free to find our way to the full knowledge of each other. When you can trust your

life to me, I will take it in tender and reverent keeping. I trust mine to you now."

She did not venture to meet his eyes again, but she took his outstretched hand. He led her to the edge of the peninsula, and they stood thus, side by side, while the liquid, tinkling semitones of the water made a contented accompaniment to the holy silence. In that silence the hearts of both were busy. He felt that though his nature had proved the stronger, she was not yet completely won: she was like a bird bewildered by capture, that sits tamely for a moment, afraid to try its wings. He must complete by gentleness what he had begun by power. She, at the moment, did not think of escape. She only felt how hopeless would be the attempt, either to advance or recede. She had lost the strong position in which she had so long been intrenched, yet could not subdue her mind to the inevitable surrender.

"I know that you are troubled," he said at last, and the considerate tenderness of his voice fell like a balm upon her heart, "but do not think that you alone have yielded to a power which mocks human will. I spoke truly, when I said that the approach of love, this time, had been met with doubt and resistance in myself. I have first yielded, and thus knowledge came to me while you were yet ignorant. From that ignorance the consciousness of love cannot, perhaps, be born at once. But I feel that the instinct which led me to seek you, has not been false. I can now appreciate something of your struggle, which is so much the more powerful than my own as woman's stake in marriage is greater than man's. Let us grant to each other an equally boundless trust, and in that pure air all remaining doubt, or jealousy, or fear of compromised rights, will die. Can you grant me this much, Hannah? It is all I ask now."

She had no strength to refuse. She trusted his manhood already with her whole heart, though foreseeing what such trust implied. "It is myself only, that I doubt," she an

swered.

"Be kind to me," she added, after a pause, releasing her hand from his clasp and half turning away: "Consider how I have failed-how I have been deceived in myself. Another woman would have been justly proud and happy in my place, for she would not have had the hopes of years to uproot, nor have had to answer to her heart the accusation of disloyalty to humanity."

"We will let that accusation rest," he soothed her. "Do not think that you have failed: you never seemed so strong to me as now. There can be no question of conflicting power between two equal hearts whom love unites in the same destiny. The time will come when this apparent discord will appear to you as a 'harmony not understood.' But, until then, I shall never say a word to you which shall not be meant to solve doubt, and allay fear, and strengthen confidence."

"Let me go back, now, to my mother," she said. "Heaven pardon me, I had almost forgotten her. She wanted me to bring her some gentians. It is very late and she will be alarmed."

He led her back through the tangled, briery paths. She took his offered hand with a mechanical submission, but the touch thrilled her through and through with a sweetness so new and piercing, that she reproached herself at each return, as if the sensation were forbidden. Woodbury gathered for her a bunch of the lovely fringed gentian, with the short autumn ferns, and the downy, fragrant silver of the life-everlasting. They walked side by side, silently, down the meadow, and slowly up the road to the widow's cottage.

"I will deliver the flowers myself," said he, as they reached the gate, "Besides, is it not best that your mother should know of what has passed ?"

She could not deny him. In the next moment they were in the little sitting-room. Mrs. Styles expected company to tea, and took her leave as soon as they appeared.

"Mother, will thee see Mr. Woodbury?" said Hannah,

opening the door into the adjoining room, where the invalid sat, comfortably propped up in her bed.

"Thee knows I am always glad to see him," came the answer, in a faint voice.

They entered together, and Woodbury laid the flowers on her bed. The old woman looked from one to another with a glance which, by a sudden clairvoyance, saw the truth. A new light came over her face. "Maxwell!" she cried; "Hannah !"

"Mother!" answered the daughter, sinking on her knees and burying her face in the bed-clothes.

Tears gushed from the widow's eyes and rolled down her hollow cheeks. "I see how it is," she said; "I prayed that it might happen. The Lord blesses me once more before I die. Come here, Maxwell, and take a mother's blessing. I give my dear daughter freely into thy hands."

Hannah heard the words. She felt that the bond, thus consecrated by the blessing of her dying mother, dared not be broken.

CHAPTER XXXII.

IN WHICH ALL RETREAT IS CUT OFF.

"COME back to-morrow, Maxwell," the Widow Thurston had said, as he took an affectionate leave of her; come back, and let me hear what thee and Hannah have to say. I am too weak now to talk any more. My life has been so little acquainted with sudden visitations of joy, that this knowledge takes hold of my strength. Thee may leave me too, Hannah; I think I could sleep a little."

The latter carefully smoothed and arranged the pillows, and left the invalid to repose. Woodbury was waiting for her, in the door leading from the sitting-room to the hall. "I am going home now," he said; " can you give me a word of hope and comfort on the way? tell me that you trust me!"

"Oh, I do, I do!" she exclaimed; "Do not mistake either my agitation or my silence. I believe that if I could once be in harmony with myself, what I have heard from your lips today would make me happy. I am like my mother," she added, with a melancholy smile, "I am more accustomed to contempt than honor."

He led her into the hall and closed the door behind them. He put one arm protectingly around her, and she felt herself supported against the world. "Hereafter, Hannah,” he whispered, "no one can strike at you except through me. Goodby until to-morrow!" He bent his head towards her face, and their eyes met. His beamed with a softened fire, a dewy tenderness and sweetness, before which her soul shivered and tingled in warm throbs of bliss, so quick and sharp as to touch the verge of pain. A wonderful, unknown fascination drew