"My poor darling!" he murmurs, and he takes her face in his hands and turns it up to him. "Oh, my darling, If you knew how I loved you—how anxiously I have waited! And it shall be soon, Stella! My little wife! My very own!"
"Yes!" she said, and, as in the old time, she raises herself in his arms and kisses him.
"And—and the countess, and all of them!" she murmurs, but with a little quaint smile.
He smiles calmly. "Not to-night, darling, do not let us talk of the outside world to-night. But see if 'all of them,' as you put it, are not exactly of one mind; one of them is," and he takes out a letter from his pocket.
"From Lilian!" she says, guessing instinctively.
Leycester nods.
"Yes, take it and read; you will find your name in every line. Stella, it was this letter that gave me courage to speak to you to-night. A woman knows a woman after all—you will read what she says. 'Are you still afraid, Ley,' she writes, 'ask her!' and I have asked. And now all the past will be buried and we shall be happy at last. At last, Stella, where—where shall it be?"
She is silent, but she lifts the letter to her lips and kisses it.
"What do you say to Paris?" he asks.