“I am so glad to hear you say that!” The earnest tone of Winthrop told the girl that her suspicion was truth. She was loved.
“You are?” murmured Virginia, in a low tone. She felt that the words that she wished to hear—for she loved the man that had risked his life so nobly—would soon be spoken.
“Yes, I am! can you guess why?” The voice of Winthrop trembled as he spoke.
Virginia glanced up shyly in the face of the young man, then dropped her eyes to the earth again. She did not answer.
Encouraged by her silence, Winthrop spoke:
“Virginia, I have known you but a few days, but I feel as if I had known you all my life. I have never met any one in the world that I have liked as I do you—that I love as I do you; for, Virginia, I love you with all my whole heart.”
Virginia hung her head; her glances shyly swept the ground. She did not reply.
“You are not offended at my words, Virginia?” he said, earnestly.
“No—no,” she replied, slowly, looking up in his face with a half-smile.
Winthrop guessed the truth in the soft eyes that looked so lovingly into his own.