"And so you let Lopez go, after all?" asked Brooke, after another pause.
"Yes," said Talbot; "he did what I was praying for—he brought you back to life. Was I wrong?"
"Wrong or right," said Brooke, "I approve of it. Everything that you do is right in my eyes."
Talbot now began to take off the priest's dress.
"What are you doing?" asked Brooke, hastily, starting up to his feet with a quickness which showed that, as he had said, he was quite himself again.
"I have no further use for this dress now," said she. "I will take it off."
"Don't," said Brooke, imploringly. "Wear it still—at least as long as you are with me; for I shall think of you, Talbot, in that dress always, until my dying day—you in that dress—in that priest's dress, with the face of an angel of heaven. It was thus that you looked as you came between me and the levelled guns of the soldiers at the old mill Talbot, I should now be a dead man but for you."
Talbot looked at him earnestly, and a sad smile stole over her face.
"Brooke," said she, "I should now be a dead girl but for you."
They both stood face to face. Brooke's memory was now fully restored, and in his mind there was the clear and unclouded recollection of that scene which had called forth his act of self-surrender. As he looked at Talbot, he saw her eyes fastened on his with an expression such as he had seen there before more than once—a look which told him of all that was in her heart. He held out his hands. She held out hers to meet them, and he seized them in a convulsive grasp. Thus they stood, holding one another's hands, and looking into one another's eyes and hearts.