"You are sure you are not mistaken?" she said, and her eyes grew full of tears.
"Mistaken? Oh! Madeline, if I were only so sure of heaven! I have loved you since the day you read 'Snow Bound' to me—loved you with an ever-growing passion. I have never loved but you—I shall never love another!"
"Do not all men say that?" she questioned, with a pathetic smile.
"I know not what other men say," he replied, earnestly. "I only know that without you life will be dark. Oh! Madeline, have you no word of hope for me?"
"Do you need words?" she asked, smiling through her tears into his face. "Have I not shown my heart all too plainly?"
"Do you mean that——"
But the sentence was never finished. Swiftly he gathered her in his arms till she could feel the beating of his heart against her own. Silently their lips met in a passionate seal of love. Then he led her to a couch and sat down by her side, and for an hour they talked and the hour seemed but as the flying of a shuttle.
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