How often he had read my happiness there in the earlier days of our love! "You bring bad news, my angel," he said, lifting my hair tenderly from my forehead as he spoke.

"I see the lines here which tell me of anxiety and distress.

I almost wish I loved you less dearly, Valeria." "Why ?" "I might give you back your freedom.

I have only to leave this place, and your uncle would be satisfied, and you would be relieved from all the cares that are pressing on you now." "Don't speak of it, Eustace! If you want me to forget my cares, say you love me more dearly than ever." He said it in a kiss.

We had a moment of exquisite forgetfulness of the hard ways of life--a moment of delicious absorption in each other.