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“You–but you have frightened me.” Miss Ogle did not seem so terrified as to make any effort to recede from him; and yet he saw that she was frightened in sober earnest. Her face showed pale, and soft, and glad, and awed, and desirable above all things; and it remained so near him as to engender riotous aspirations.

“I love you,” he said again. You would never have suspected this man could speak, upon occasion, fluently. “I think–I think that Heaven was prodigal when Heaven made you. To think of you is as if I listened to an exalted music; and to be with you is to understand that all imaginable sorrows are just the figments of a dream which I had very long ago.”

She laid one hand on each of his shoulders, facing him. “Do not let me be too much afraid! I have not ever been afraid before. Oh, everything is in a mist of gold, and I am afraid of you, and of the big universe which I was born into, and I am helpless, and I would have nothing changed! Only, I cannot believe I am worth L10,000, and I do so want to be persuaded I am. It is a great pity,” she sighed, “that you who convicted Warren Hastings of stealing such enormous wealth cannot be quite as eloquent to-day as you were in the Oudh speech, and convince me his arraigner has been equally rapacious!”

“I mean to prove as much–with time,” said Mr. Sheridan. His breathing was yet perfunctory.

Miss Ogle murmured, “And how long would you require?”

“Why, I intend, with your permission, to devote the remainder of my existence to the task. Eh, I concede that space too brief for any adequate discussion of the topic; but I will try to be concise and very practical—-“

She laughed. They were content. “Try, then—-” Miss Ogle said.

She was able to get no farther in the sentence, for reasons which to particularize would be indiscreet.