"How can I answer since you yourself forbid me?"

"Till this time to-morrow only. Meanwhile, I pray you hear me,
Rosamund. I am your cousin, and we were brought up
together--indeed, except when I was away at the Scottish war, we
have never been apart. Therefore, we know each other well, as
well as any can who are not wedded. Therefore, too, you will know
that I have always loved you, first as a brother loves his
sister, and now as a man loves a woman."

"Nay, Godwin, I knew it not; indeed, I thought that, as it used
to be, your heart was other--where."

"Other--where? What lady--?"

"Nay, no lady; but in your dreams."

"Dreams? Dreams of what?"

"I cannot say. Perchance of things that are not here--things
higher than the person of a poor maid."

"Cousin, in part you are right, for it is not only the maid whom
I love, but her spirit also. Oh, in truth, you are to me a
dream--a symbol of all that is noble, high and pure. In you and
through you, Rosamund, I worship the heaven I hope to share with
you."

"A dream? A symbol? Heaven? Are not these glittering garments to