Her eyes were still fixed upon the ground, but her hand that he clasped in his throbbed like a heart. And oh! he felt how entirely she loved him; and he felt that he could devote his whole life to her.
"Dearest of all dear ones, Bee, listen to me. Not many days have passed, since, one evening, you came to this arbor, seeking one that was lost and found—me!"
She began to tremble.
"You know how you found me, Bee," he said sadly and solemnly.
"Oh, Ishmael, dear!" she cried, with an accent of sharp pain, "do not speak of that evening! forget it and let me forget it! it is past!"
"Dearest girl, only this once will I pain you by alluding to that sorrowful and degrading hour. You found me—I will not shrink from uttering the word, though it will scorch my lips to speak it and burn your ears to hear it—you found me—intoxicated."
"Oh, Ishmael, dear, you were not to blame! it was not your fault! it was an accident—a misfortune!" she exclaimed, as blushes burned upon her cheeks and tears suffused her eyes.
"How much I blamed, how much I loathed myself, dearest Bee, you can never know! Let that pass. You found me as I said. Actually and bodily I was lying on this bench, sleeping the stupid sleep of intoxication; but morally and spiritually I was slipping over the brink of an awful chasm. Bee, dearest Bee! dearest saving angel! it was this little hand of yours that drew me back, so softly that I scarcely knew I had been in danger of ruin until that danger was past. And, Bee, since that day many days of storm have passed, but the face of my saving angel has ever looked out from among the darkest clouds a bright rainbow of promise. I did not perish in the storm, because her sweet face ever looked down upon me!"
Bee did not attempt to reply; she could not; she sat with her flushed and tearful eyes bent upon the ground.
"Love, do you know this token?" he inquired, in a voice shaking with agitation, as he drew from his bosom a little wisp of white cambric and laid it in her lap.