 never,
before Heaven, have I thought of you but as the single, bright, pure, blessed
recollection of my boyhood and my youth. Never have I from the first, and never
shall I to the last, regard your part in my life, but as something sacred, never
to be lightly thought of, never to be esteemed enough, never, until death, to be
forgotten. Again to see you look, and hear you speak, as you did on that night
when we parted, is happiness to me that there are no words to utter; and to be
loved and trusted as your brother, is the next great gift I could receive and
prize!«
    »Walter,« said Florence, looking at him earnestly, but with a changing face,
»what is that which is due to me, and must be rendered to me, at the sacrifice
of all this?«
    »Respect,« said Walter, in a low tone. »Reverence.«
    The colour dawned in her face, and she timidly and thoughtfully withdrew her
hand; still looking at him with unabated earnestness.
    »I have not a brother's right,« said Walter. »I have not a brother's claim.
I left a child. I find a woman.«
    The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of entreaty that he
would say no more, and her face dropped upon her hands.
    They were both silent for a time; she weeping.
    »I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,« said Walter, »even to
tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it is my sister's!«
    She was weeping still.
    »If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and admiring
friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to enviable,« said
Walter; »and if you had called me brother, then, in your affectionate
remembrance of the past, I could have answered to the name from my distant
place, with no inward assurance that I wronged your spotless truth by doing so.
But here - and now!« -
    »Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so much. I
had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.«
    »Florence!« said Walter, passionately. »I am hurried on to say, what I
thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from my lips. If I had
been prosperous
