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 blown the mists of the city from his eyes (thus he reasoned), and now he knew that Margaret loved him! How could he doubt it? Had he not felt that she belonged to him from the hour when they had danced together, had breathed the perfume of the same flowers, and felt the same irresistible influence of the spring thrilling in their veins? Had he not heard her love in the low cry she gave that night when he exonerated his friend and acknowledged that it was his hand which had shed the blood of Fernand Thoron? Had he not seen it in the drooping lines of her lithe body as she stood, all white and quivering, as if she had been struck with a mortal blow? He had hesitated long enough; he would go and woo and win the woman he loved. He would pursue her as arduously as ever Indian lover pursued his fleeing bride. He would have her for his own. What power in the world was so strong as the passion in his breast? Love, that had o'erturned an empire, was it not strong enough to conquer this girl who mocked him and called him a savage?

He was speaking his thoughts aloud now, while he paced up and down the narrow clearing. On the same spot where the priest had breathed his fervent apostrophe to Nature, Robert paused, and raising his arms above his head, cried with a voice deep as the sound of the sea: "I will