"Mary—dear, dearest Mary!" and he pressed the hand he held—"You know I love you!—you know——"
She turned her face towards him—a pale, wondering face,—and tried to smile.
"How do I know?" she murmured tremulously—"How can I believe? I'm past the time for love!"
For all answer he drew her into his arms.
"Ask Love itself about that, Mary!" he said. "Ask my heart, which beats for you,—ask my soul, which longs for you!—ask me, who worship you, you, best and dearest of women, about the time for love! That time for us is now, Mary!—now and always!"
Then came a silence—that eloquent silence which surpasses all speech. Love has no written or spoken language—it is incommunicable as God. And Mary, whose nature was open and pure as the daylight, would not have been the woman she was if she could have expressed in words the deep tenderness and passion which at that supreme moment silently responded to her lover's touch, her lover's embrace. And when,—lifting her face between his two hands, he gazed at it long and earnestly, a smile, shining between tears, brightened her sweet eyes.
"You are looking at me as if you never saw me before, Angus!" she said, her voice sinking softly, as she pronounced his name.
"Positively, I don't think I ever have!" he answered "Not as you are now, Mary! I have never seen you look so beautiful! I have never seen you before as my love! my wife!"
She drew herself a little away from him.
"But, are you sure you are doing right for yourself?" she asked—"You know you could marry anybody——"