Bernard Lynn arose,—"I will go out and buy a bridal present for my child," he said, "and your sister and myself will take charge of all the details of the marriage. God bless you, my boy! What a load is lifted from my heart!"
How over his bronzed visage, a look cordial and joyous as the spring sunshine played, even while there were tears in his eyes!
Randolph felt his heart swell with rapture, but instantly,—growing pale as death,—he rose, and resolved to make a revelation, which would blast all his hopes to ashes.
"I will not deceive this good old man. I will tell him my real condition, tell him that there is the blood of the accursed race in my veins."
This was his thought, and feeling like a criminal on the scaffold, he prepared to fulfill it,—
"Ah, you and I are agreed," cried Bernard, with his usual jovial laugh.—"but you must ask this child what she says of the matter," and dropping Randolph's hand, he hurried from the room.
Even as the first word of the confession was on his lip, Randolph beheld Eleanor, who had entered unperceived, standing between him and the light, on the very spot which her father had just left.
She looked very beautiful.
Clad in a dark dress, which, fitting closely to her arms and bust, and flowing in rich folds, around her womanly proportions, from the waist to the feet, she stood before him, one finger raised to her lip, her eyes fixed upon him in a gaze, full of deep and passionate light. Her face was cast into faint shadow, by her hair, which was disposed about it, in brown and wavy masses. But through the shadow her eyes shone with deep and passionate light.
A very beautiful woman, now unable to utter a word, as with heaving breast, she confronts the man whom she knows is destined to be her husband.