"And then, Emilia," he said, gazing upon her with ardent affection, "I will ask for my reward."
It was impossible, even if her heart were not already his, that she should fail to be touched by his delicacy and devotion. Tenderly and humbly she thanked him, and intended to say that she would give him his answer on the morrow, but love broke down the barrier of reserve. Involuntarily she held out her hands to him, and he clasped her in his arms and kissed her on her lips, and said that the embrace was a pledge of truth and constancy.
So through the clouds of this dolorous night broke the sun of faithful mutual love. It might have been excused him had he lingered, but for her sake he would not.
"I shall wait in the passage," he said, "to hear you turn the key. No one will disturb you. The housekeeper does not enter this room till I ring in the morning, and I am not always an early bird. Good-night, dear love."
"Good-night, dear Gerald. Are you sure you will be able to get a bed?"
"I can get a dozen. God bless and guard you!"
They kissed each other once more, and then he left her. He waited in the passage to hear the key turned, and with a lover's foolish fondness kissed the door which shut his treasure from his sight. He listened in the passage a moment or two to assure himself that all was still and safe, and then he crept to the street-door, which he opened and closed very softly. He did not seek a bed elsewhere, having come to the determination that it would be a better security from slanderous tongues that it should be supposed he slept in his own house that night. So he made pilgrimages through the streets, ever and anon coming back to the house which sheltered his darling. But once it fatefully happened that he was absent for some thirty or forty minutes, during which period a startling and unexpected incident occurred, the forerunner of as strange a series as ever entered into the history of two loving hearts.
The young servant whose loquacious tongue Gerald did not dare to trust was not asleep when he brought Emilia home. She was in bed, it was true, but wide-awake, with a candle alight at her bedside. It was against the rules of the house, but she did not care for that, being deeply engrossed in a thrilling story which set rules at defiance and drove sleep away. She heard the street-door opened and closed, then a murmur of voices, like the distant murmur of the sea, and then the second opening and closing of the street-door. The sounds did not arouse her curiosity, she was so profoundly interested in the fate of the hero and heroine that nothing short of a miracle could have diverted her attention. So she read on with eager eyes and panting bosom, long after Gerald had left the house, and would have continued to read, had she not come to those tantalizing words, "To be continued in our next." Then, with a long-drawn sigh, she turned in her bed--and forgot to blow out the candle.