I _could_ not come any longer." Jerome looked down at Lucina, with an air of stern, yet wistful, argument.

She sat before him with downcast, pale, and sober face, then she rose, and all her girlish irresolution and shame dropped from her, and left for a moment the woman in her unveiled.
"I love you as much as you love me," she said, simply.
Jerome looked at her.

"You--don't mean--that ?" "Yes, I suppose I did when you told me first, but I did not know it then.

Now I know it.

I have been very unhappy because I feared you might be staying away because you thought I did not love you, but I dared not try to see you as I did before, because I had found myself out.