He hurried up to her, caught both her hands in his, and gazed into her wan and haggard face with the intensest tenderness and anxiety.
Valencia's eyes looked into the depths of his, passive and confiding, till they failed before the keenness of his gaze, and swam in glittering mist.
"Ah!" thought she; "sorrow is a light price to pay for the feeling of being so loved by such a man!" "You are tired,--ill?
What a night you must have had! Mellot has told me all." "Oh, my poor sister!" and wildly she poured out to Frank her wrath against Elsley, her inability to comfort Lucia, and all the misery and confusion of the past night.
"This is a sad dawning for the day of my triumph!" thought Frank, who longed to pour out his heart to her on a thousand very different matters: but he was content; it was enough for him that she could tell him all, and confide in him; a truer sign of affection than any selfish love-making; and he asked, and answered, with such tenderness and thoughtfulness for poor Lucia, with such a deep comprehension of Elsley's character, pitying while he blamed, that he won his reward at last.
"Oh! it would he intolerable, if I had not through it all the thought" and blushing crimson, her head drooped on her bosom.

She seemed ready to drop with exhaustion.
"Sit down, sit down, or you will fall!" said Frank, leading her to a chair; and as he led her, he whispered with fluttering heart, new to its own happiness, and longing to make assurance sure--"What thought ?" She was silent still; but he felt her hand tremble in his.
"The thought of me ?" She looked up in his face; how beautiful! And in another moment, neither knew how, she was clasped to his bosom.
He covered her face, her hair with kisses: she did not move; from that moment she felt that he was her husband.
"Oh, guide me! counsel me! pray for me!" sobbed she.

"I am all alone, and my poor sister, she is going mad, I think, and I have no one to trust but you; and you--you will leave me to go to those dreadful wars; and then, what will become of me?
Oh, stay! only a few days!" and holding him convulsively, she answered his kisses with her own.
Frank stood as in a dream, while the room reeled round and vanished; and he was alone for a moment upon earth with her and his great love.
"Tell me," said he, at last, trying to awaken himself to action.

"Tell me! Is she really going to seek him ?" "Yes, selfish and forgetful that I am! You must help me! she will go to London, nothing can stop her;--and it will kill her!" "It may drive her mad to keep her here." "It will! and that drives me mad also.

What can I choose!" "Follow where God leads.