Too Rich : A Romance

It was the first time that Delmar had called the girl by her first name,--that he had spoken to her in so earnest and yet so confidential a tone. She divined what he wished to say, but she did not refuse to listen. Her low-whispered 'yes' enchanted him; it told him that he did not hope in vain.

Paul continued: "That little 'yes,' dearest Hilda, makes me inexpressibly happy; it tells me that you trust me, and I would have you trust me, now and forever, freely and unconditionally. You must have seen that from the first moment when I met you, my lovely fairy, in the labyrinth of rocks, my heart has been yours. I revelled in the hope of one day winning your heart and your hand also. I was happy, exquisitely happy! But my dream of bliss lasted but two short days. I was suddenly and rudely awakened from it by the startling and as I thought absolute certainty that your father never would bestow upon me your hand, and that therefore I must not even try to win your heart. I can never, my dear Hilda, tell you what created in me this belief. Here you must trust me implicitly. You must never know the dark mystery that interposed between us, nor the cause I thought there was for the utter despair to which I was a prey. Life lost all value in my eyes; the reckless gayety which sometimes distressed you, as well as the morbid melancholy that assailed me when I was alone, was the result of the terrible conviction that possessed me that you never could be my own,--that I could never be more to you than a faithful friend and brother.