"Here, Richard," she answered at last, her eyelids involuntarily
closing when she saw him rising, and knew he was coming toward
her.
She had forgotten her promise to Arthur that she would not answer
Richard "No," should he ask her to be his wife; that, like Nina's
"scratching out," was null and void, and when he knelt beside her,
she said half bitterly,
"It must not be; THE SINGING BIRD CANNOT MATE WITH THE OWL!"
Instantly there broke from the blind man's lips a cry of agony so
pitiful, so reproachful in its tone, that Edith repented her
insulting words, and winding her arms around his neck, entreated
his forgiveness for having so cruelly mocked him..
"You called yourself so first," she sobbed, "or I should not have
thought of it. Forgive me. Richard, I didn't mean it. I could not
thus pain the noblest, truest friend I ever had. Forgive your
singing bird. She surely did not mean it," and Edith pressed her
burning cheeks against his own.
What was it she did not mean? That it could not be, or that he was
an owl? He asked himself this question many times during the
moment of silence which intervened; then as he felt her still
clinging to him, his love for her rolled back upon him with
overwhelming force, and kneeling before her as the slave to his
master, he pleaded with her again to say IT COULD BE, the great
happiness he had dared to hope for.
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