The young man regarded her anxiously for a moment; then he understood it all.
"Virgie," he said, "you need not fear to promise all that I ask, for I know what troubles you. I asked your father's sanction to my suit before I came to you, and he told me all his sad story. But it need be no barrier to our happiness. I told him so, and he gave you to me—providing I could win you—with his blessing."
Virgie lifted her face, all radiant with a sweet new joy, a sense of exultation in her heart.
"And you were willing——" she began, wondering at the great love that could thus level what she had had feared would be an insurmountable barrier.
"Willing, love, to make myself the happiest man on earth," he interrupted, in a voice that actually trembled with joy. "What Mr. Abbot told me does not affect your worth or character, nor his either, and some time I believe the wrong will be made all right. Even were the facts more serious than they are, they need not trouble us, for I could take you far away from every breath of evil, and as my wife it could never touch you. So you will give yourself to me, Virgie?"
"Yes," she answered, with grave sweetness; "if papa thinks it is right, I cannot put my cup of happiness away untasted."
Sir William Heath bent and touched the beautiful girl's lips with his first lover's kiss.
"My beloved," he said, "life looks to me now like one long vista of happiness—may it prove so to both of us."
They sat there beneath the shadow of the great pine for more than an hour, wearing bright plans for the future, while the twilight gathered around them. But as yet Sir William had not told his bethrothed who he was, nor of the title awaiting her when she should become his wife. Somehow, he felt strangely reluctant to do so.
Once he had spoken of his home, and Virgie looked up with sudden interest, and asked: