"Be my wife, Elizabeth," he asked, "and I shall grow up into a good man again. What a pitiful creature I have been without you, you have already seen sufficiently this morning."
"God be my witness, Salvé," she answered, the tears bursting into her eyes with emotion which she tried to control, "you alone have always had my heart—but I must first know in perfect truth what you think of me."
"The same as I think of God's angels, Elizabeth," he said from his heart, and tried to take her hand.
"Do you know that I—was once very nearly engaged to young Beck?" she asked, reddening, but with a steady look. "I didn't know my real self then, but was thinking only of folly and nonsense, until I was obliged to fly from it all."
"Your aunt has told me all about it, Elizabeth. Don't let us mention the subject again."
"And you haven't a doubt about me in your heart? For that I never will bear, Salvé, like to-day,—I can't bear it, do you understand?" she said, with a shake in her voice, and looking as it were down into his very soul.
"Doubt!" he said; and for that moment, at all events, he was evidently convinced that she had never given her real heart to any one but himself.
A look of inexpressible happiness came into her face; he caught her into his arms, and they stood as if they never would let go of each other again, cheek to cheek, not speaking, not thinking even. There was something convulsive in their embrace, as if they could not believe in the reality of their happiness, and as if they felt an instinctive dread that they should lose it again.
Unobserved by either of them the door had opened, and in the doorway stood pursy Garvloit, gazing in helpless bewilderment at the scene before him. At last Elizabeth caught sight of him, and—not with any confusion, but only eager to communicate her happiness—exclaimed—
"It is my lover—"