“But indeed I feel I cannot make my love a good bargain to you, for you are peerless, and deserve a much better lot in every way than I can offer. I can only kneel to you and say, 'Zoe Vizard, if your heart is your own to give, pray be my lover, my queen, my wife.'
“Your faithful servant and devoted admirer,
“UXMOOR.”
“Poor fellow!” said Zoe, and her eyes filled. She sat quite quiet, with the letter open in her hand. She looked at it, and murmured, “A pearl is offered me here: wealth, title, all that some women sigh for, and—what I value above all—a noble nature, a true heart, and a soul above all meanness. No; Uxmoor will never tell a falsehood. He could not.”
She sighed deeply, and closed her eyes. All was still. The light was faint; yet she closed her eyes, like a true woman, to see the future clearer.
Then, in the sober and deep calm, there seemed to be faint peeps of coming things: It appeared a troubled sea, and Uxmoor's strong hand stretched out to rescue her. If she married him, she knew the worst—an honest man she esteemed, and had almost an affection for, but no love.
As some have an impulse to fling themselves from a height, she had one to give herself to Uxmoor, quietly, irrevocably, by three written words dispatched that night.
But it was only an impulse. If she had written it, she would have torn it up.
Presently a light thrill passed through her: she wore a sort of half-furtive, guilty look, and opened the window.
Ay, there he stood in the moonlight, waiting to be heard.