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 "In all its depths?"

"Yes. It means the utter surrender of soul and body or it means nothing!"

"And yet, you ask that I say it?"

"I know that I'm not worthy, but Love has always dared to claim its own, soul crying to soul, mate calling to mate—I love you! I love you! Ah! The story is old as the throb of life, yet always new and full of wonder. I know it's too much to ask, yet I dare to ask it."

"There should be no shadows between those who thus love, should there?" she asked with a far-away dreamy look as if his burning words had caught her spirit in their spell.

"No," he answered, solemnly. "A thousand times I've longed to tell you how tender was my sympathy for you in the tragedy that threw its shadow across your young life in this hall a few months ago."

"And yet you didn't," she said reproachfully, studying him keenly and furtively, with her head bowed as if in grief for the memory of her father.

"How could I without hypocrisy? The Judge and I had been uncompromising enemies. Could I tear my heart open and let the vulgar world see the deep secret of my love for you?"

"You loved me then?" she broke in with surprise.