retire as not your peer, and leave you to some man who could rise
more easily to the height of your dignity?"

"I've thought about that too," Herminia answered, still firm to her
principles. "I've thought it all over. I've said to myself, Shall
I do right in monopolizing him, when he is so great, and sweet, and
true, and generous? Not monopolizing, of course, for that would be
wrong and selfish; but making you my own more than any other
woman's. And I answered my own heart, Yes, yes, I shall do right
to accept him, if he asks me; for I love him, that is enough. The
thrill within me tells me so. Nature put that thrill in our souls
to cry out to us with a clear voice when we had met the soul she
then and there intended for us."

Alan's face flushed like her own. "Then you love me," he cried,
all on fire. "And you deign to tell me so; Oh, Herminia, how sweet
you are. What have I done to deserve it?"

He folded her in his arms. Her bosom throbbed on his. Their lips
met for a second. Herminia took his kiss with sweet submission,
and made no faint pretence of fighting against it. Her heart was
full. She quickened to the finger-tips.

There was silence for a minute or two,--the silence when soul
speaks direct to soul through the vehicle of touch, the
mother-tongue of the affections. Then Alan leaned back once more,
and hanging over her in a rapture murmured in soft low tones, "So
Herminia, you will be mine! You say beforehand you will take me."

"Not WILL be yours," Herminia corrected in that silvery voice of