I ask for nothing but your love,--your exclusive, boundless love,--a love that will be ready to sacrifice every thing but innocence and integrity for me,--that will cling to me in woe as in weal, in shame as in honor, in death as in life.

Such is the love I give; and such I ask in return.
Is it mine?
Tell me not of opposing barriers; only tell me what your heart this moment dictates; forgetful of the past, regardless of the future?
Is this love mine ?" "It is," I answered, looking up through fast-falling tears.

"Why will you wring this confession from me, when you only know it too well ?" "One question more, Gabriella, for your truth-telling lips to answer.

Is this love only given in _return_?
Did it not spring spontaneously forth from the warmth and purity of your own heart, without waiting the avowal of mine?
Gratitude is not love.

It is _stone_, not bread, to a spirit as exacting as mine." Again the truth was forced from me by his unconquerable will,--a will that opened the secret valves of thought, and rolled away the rock from the fountain of feeling.