She raised the two hands that still held hers, and bowed her forehead upon them.
For some moments silence reigned; then, standing before him, Irene said, with touching pathos—
"My friend, I am so desolate! so lonely! I am drifting down the current of life aimless, hopeless, useless! What shall I do with my future? I believe I am slowly petrifying; I neither suffer nor enjoy as formerly; my feelings are deadened; I am growing callous, indifferent to everything. I am fast losing sympathy for the sorrows of others, swallowed up in self, oblivious of the noble aspirations of promise. Once more I ask you, what shall I do with my life?"
"Give it to God."
"Ah! there is neither grace nor virtue in necessity. He will not accept the worthless thing thrown at His feet, as a dernier ressort. Once it was my choice, but the pure, clear-eyed faith of my childhood shook hands with me when you left me in New York."
For a short while he struggled with himself, striving to overcome the unconquerable impulse which suddenly prompted him, and his face grew pallid as hers as he walked hastily across the smooth grass and came back to her. Her countenance was lifted toward the neighbouring hill, her thoughts evidently far away, when he paused before her, and said unsteadily—
"Irene, my beloved! give yourself to me. Go with me into God's vineyard; let us work together, and consecrate our lives to His service."
The mesmeric eyes gazed into his, full of wonder, and the rich ruby tint fled from her lips as she pondered his words in unfeigned astonishment, and shaking her regal head; answered slowly—
"Harvey, I am not worthy. I want your counsel, not your pity."
"Pity! you mistake me. If you have been ignorant so long, know now that I have loved you from the evening you first sat in my study looking over my foreign sketches. You were then a child, but I was a man, and I knew all that you had so suddenly become to me. Because of this great disparity in years, and because I dared not hope that one so tenderly nurtured could ever brave the hardships of my projected life, I determined to quit New York earlier than I had anticipated, and to bury a foolish memory in the trackless forests of the far West. I ought to have known the fallacy of my expectation; I have proved it since. Your face followed me; your eyes met mine at every turn; your glittering hair swept on every breeze that touched my cheek. Irene, you are young, and singularly beautiful, and I am a grey-haired man, much, much older than yourself; but, if you live a thousand years, you will never find such affection as I offer you now. There is nothing on earth which would make me so happy as the possession of your love. You are the only woman I have ever seen whom I even wish to call my wife—the only woman who, I felt, could lend new charm to life, and make my quiet hearth happier by her presence. Irene, will you share my future? Can you give me what I ask?"