Past bitterness and wounded pride were instantly forgotten; hope kindled in his dark, stern face, a beauty that rarely dwelt there, and, throwing down his hat, he stepped forward and took her folded hands in his strong grasp.
"Irene, do you intend me to understand—are you willing that I shall believe that, after all, I have an interest in your heart—that I am more to you than you ever before deigned to let me know? If it, indeed, be so, oh! give me the unmistakable assurance."
Her lips moved; he stooped his haughty head to catch the low fluttering words.
"You said that night: 'I could forgive your father all! all if I knew that he had not so successfully hardened, closed your heart against me.' Forgive him, Russell. You never can know all that you have been to me from my childhood. Only God, who sees my heart, knows what suffering our long alienation has cost me."
An instant he wavered, his strong frame quivered, and then he caught her exultingly in his arms, resting her head upon his bosom, leaning his swarthy hot cheek on hers, cold and transparent as alabaster.
"At last I realize the one dream of my life! I hold you to my heart, acknowledged all my own! Who shall dare dispute the right your lips have given me? Hatred is powerless now; none shall come between me and my own. O Irene! my beautiful darling! not all my ambitious hopes, not all the future holds, not time, nor eternity, could purchase the proud, inexpressible joy of this assurance."
"Instead of cherishing your affection for me, you struggled against it with all the energy of your character. I have seen, for some time, that you were striving to crush it out—to forget me entirely."
"I do not deny it; and certainly you ought not to blame me. You kept me at a distance with your chilling, yet graceful, fascinating hauteur. I had nothing to hope—everything to suffer. I diligently set to work to expel you utterly from my thoughts; and I tell you candidly, I endeavoured to love another, who was brilliant, and witty, and universally admired. But her fitful, stormy, exacting temperament was too much like my own to suit me. I tried faithfully to become attached to her, intending to make her my wife, but I failed signally. My heart clung stubbornly to its old worship; my restless, fiery spirit could find no repose, no happiness, save in the purity, the profound marvellous calm of your nature. You became the synonym of peace, rest; and, because you gave me no friendly word or glance, locking your passionless face against me, I grew savage toward you. Did you believe that I would marry Salome?"
"No! I had faith that, despite your angry efforts, your heart would be true to me."
"Why did you inflict so much pain on us both, when a word would have explained all? When the assurance you have given me to-day would have sweetened the past years of trial?"