Language was weak to give utterance to the full gust of happy feelings
that now were theirs. It was ecstasy enough to feel, to know that the
evil fortune which had so long separated them, depriving each existence
of its sunniest aspect, was over. It was enough for Charles Holland to
feel that she loved him still. It was enough for Flora Bannerworth to
know, as she looked into his beaming countenance, that that love was not
misplaced, but was met by feelings such as she herself would have
dictated to be the inhabitants of the heart of him whom she would have
chosen from the mass of mankind as her own. "Flora--dear Flora," said Charles, "and you have never doubted me?" "I've never doubted, Charles, Heaven or you. To doubt one would have
been, to doubt both." "Generous and best of girls, what must you have thought of my enforced
absence! Oh! Flora, I was unjust enough to your truth to make my
greatest pang the thought that you might doubt me, and cast me from your
heart for ever." "Ah! Charles, you ought to have known me better. I stood amid sore
temptation to do so much. There were those who would have urged me on to
think that you had cast me from your heart for ever. There were those
ready and willing to place the worst construction upon your conduct, and
with a devilish ingenuity to strive to make me participate in such a
feeling; but, no, Charles, no--I loved you, and I trusted you, and I
could not so far belie my own judgment as to tell you other than what
you always seemed to my young fancy." "And you are right, my Flora, right; and is it not a glorious triumph to
see that love--that sentiment of passion--has enabled you to have so
enduring and so noble a confidence in aught human?" "Ay, Charles, it is the sentiment of passion, for our love has been more
a sentiment than a passion. I would fain think that we had loved each
other with an affection not usually known, appreciated, or understood,
and so, in the vanity of my best affections, I would strive to think
them something exclusive, and beyond the common feelings of humanity." "And you are right, my Flora; such love as yours is the exception; there
may be preferences, there may be passions, and there may be sentiments,
but never, never, surely, was there a heart like yours." "Nay, Charles, now you speak from a too poetical fancy; but is it
possible that I have had you here so long, with your hand clasped in
mine, and asked you not the causes of your absence?" "Oh, Flora, I have suffered much--much physically, but more mentally. It
was the thought of you that was at once the bane and the antidote of my
existence." "Indeed, Charles! Did I present myself in such contradictory colours to
you?" "Yes, dearest, as thus. When I thought of you, sometimes, in the deep
seclusion of a dungeon, that thought almost goaded me to madness,
because it brought with it the conviction--a conviction peculiar to a
lover--that none could so effectually stand between you and all evil as
myself." "Yes, yes, Charles; most true." "It seemed to me as if all the world in arms could not have protected
you so well as this one heart, clad in the triple steel of its
affections, could have shielded you from evil." "Ay, Charles; and then I was the bane of your existence, because I
filled you with apprehension?" "For a time, dearest; and then came the antidote; for when exhausted
alike in mind and body--when lying helpless, with chains upon my
limbs--when expecting death at every visit of those who had dragged me
from light and from liberty, and from love; it was but the thought of
thy beauty and thy affection that nerved me, and gave me a hope even
amidst the cruellest disaster." "And then--and then, Charles?" "You were my blessing, as you have ever been--as you are, and as you
will ever be--my own Flora, my beautiful--my true!" We won't go so far as to say it is the fact; but, from a series of
singular sounds which reached even to the passage of the cottage, we
have our own private opinion to the effect, that Charles began kissing
Flora at the top of her forehead, and never stopped, somehow or another,
till he got down to her chin--no, not her chin--her sweet lips--he could
not get past them. Perhaps it was wrong; but we can't help it--we are
faithful chroniclers. Reader, if you be of the sterner sex, what would
you have done?--if of the gentler, what would you have permitted? CHAPTER LXXV. MUTUAL EXPLANATIONS, AND THE VISIT TO THE RUINS. [Illustration]

During the next hour, Charles informed Flora of the whole particulars of
his forcible abduction; and to his surprise he heard, of course, for the
first time, of those letters, purporting to be written by him, which
endeavoured to give so bad an aspect to the fact of his sudden
disappearance from Bannerworth Hall. Flora would insist upon the admiral, Henry, and the rest of the family,
hearing all that Charles had to relate concerning Mr. Marchdale; for
well she knew that her mother, from early associations, was so far
impressed in the favour of that hypocritical personage, that nothing but
damning facts, much to his prejudice, would suffice to convince her of
the character he really was. But she was open to conviction, and when she really found what a villain
she had cherished and given her confidence to, she shed abundance of
tears, and blamed herself exceedingly as the cause of some of the
misfortunes which had fallen upon her children. "Very good," said the admiral; "I ain't surprised a bit. I knew he was a
vagabond from the first time I clapped eyes upon him. There was a down
look about the fellow's figure-head that I didn't like, and be hanged to
him, but I never thought he would have gone the length he has done. And
so you say you've got him safe in the ruins, Charles?" "I have, indeed, uncle." "And then there let him remain, and a good place, too, for him." "No, uncle, no. I'm sure you speak without thought. I intend to release
him in a few hours, when I have rested from my fatigues. He could not
come to any harm if he were to go without food entirely for the time
that I leave him; but even that he will not do, for there is bread and
water in the dungeon." "Bread and water! that's too good for him. But, however, Charles, when
you go to let him out, I'll go with you, just to tell him what I think
of him, the vagabond." "He must suffer amazingly, for no doubt knowing well, as he does, his
own infamous intentions, he will consider that if I were to leave him to
starve to death, I should be but retailing upon him the injuries he
would have inflicted upon me." "The worst of it is," said the admiral, "I can't think what to do with
him." "Do nothing, uncle, but just let him go; it will be a sufficient
punishment for such a man to feel that, instead of succeeding in his
designs, he has only brought upon himself the bitterest contempt of
those whom he would fain have injured. I can have no desire for revenge
on such a man as Marchdale."