She wondered at it, and yet, although she could not have told why, her heart began to beat with quickened throbs on account of it.
Reaching their favorite nook, Sir William gently seated his companion, and then stood looking down upon her a moment without speaking.
Then he spoke, and there was a tenderer note in his voice than she had ever heard before.
"Virgie," he said, "have you ever wondered why I came here and turned miner?"
She looked up quickly as he spoke her name thus for the first time, then her eyes suddenly drooped beneath the look in his.
"Yes, I have thought it a little singular that you should choose just this work and this locality," she answered, in a low tone.
"May I tell you why I came?" seating himself at her side.
"Certainly, if you like."
"It was because I found here the only woman whom I could ever love. Virgie, you are that woman, and my heart told me on that first evening when I came to you, cold, wet, and hungry, that I must win your love or my future would be void and desolate. So I seized upon the first reasonable pretext I could find for remaining, and that, you know, your father offered me in disposing of his claim. Sometimes I have hoped that you were learning to love me in return; sometimes I have feared that I should not succeed in this, the dearest object of my life. My darling, I resolved to-night that I would put my fate to the test. Will you give yourself to me for all time, my beautiful mountain queen? Do you love me well enough, dear, to put your hand in mine and tell me that you will go with me wherever I will, as my loved and cherished wife?"
Virginia Abbot sat there, her perfect form outlined against the dark, moss-grown rock that arose, rugged and grand, behind her. The softened light, as it fell upon her through the boughs of the tree above her, made her seem like some exquisite picture painted by a master-hand. Her hands, white as Parian marble, were quietly folded in her lap, but her heart was in a tumult of joy, and her color came and went in fitful flushes.