He received no reply, but he felt a tear drop upon his hand.
Then he lost his self-control. The strong love swelling in his soul burst forth into utterance, and with impassioned tones and eloquent, though broken words, he told her of his most presuming and almost hopeless love.
And then he waited, trembling, for the rejection and rebuke that his modesty made him more than half expect.
But no such rebuff came from Emma Cavendish.
She paused in her walk, raised her beautiful eyes to his face and placed both her hands in his.
And in this manner she silently accepted him.
How fervently he thanked and blessed her!
Emma Cavendish had always been a dutiful daughter to the doting old lady in the "throne room;" so that night, before she slept, she went in and told her grandmother of her engagement to Alden Lytton.
Now, by all the rules of wrong, Madam Cavendish should have resolutely set her face against the betrothal of her wealthy granddaughter to a young lawyer with no fortune of his own and with his way yet to make in the world.
And if the old lady had been somewhat younger she would probably have done this very thing.