I have loved and shall love you as I have never loved a human being."

"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you not say
it without making me ashamed of myself?"

"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you."

"Annoy!"

He gathered her to him and kissed her.

A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is a piece
of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need not expect it;
but those great thick walls were no way taken by surprise: they had
not been confidants of this kind of thing off and on for four or five
hundred years to be taken by surprise now. Whether after such long
familiarity with the old story they felt it any way stale, you will
readily believe they did not say.




VI.


"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had time to
come to himself after the first draught of miraculous champagne. "I
was on my way to investigate his ghost when I heard an unaccountable
scream."