inst the door-post with her face to the night. It
was a night of wonder, of marvellous, soul-stilling peace. Yet her brows
were slightly drawn as she waited there. She seemed to be puzzling over
something.

"Say it out loud," said Nap.

She did not start at the words though he had come up behind her without
sound. She stretched out her hand without turning and drew his arm
through hers.

"Why did we choose this place?" she said.

"You didn't choose it," said Nap.

"Then you?"

"I chose it chiefly because I knew you hated it," he said, a queer
vibration of recklessness in his voice.

"My dear Nap, am I to believe that?"

He looked at her through the falling dusk, and his hand closed tense and
vital upon her arm. "It's the truth anyway," he said. "I knew you hated
the place, that you only came to it for my sake. And I--I made you come
because I wanted you to love it."

"For your sake, Nap?" she said softly.

"Yes, and for another reason." He paused a moment; speech seemed suddenly
an effort to him. Then: "Anne," he said, "you forgave me, I know, long
ago; but I want you here--on this spot--to tell me that what happened
here is to you as if it had never been. I want it blotted out of your
mind for ever. I want your trust--your trust!"

It was like a hunger-cry rising from the man's very soul. At sound of it
she turned impulsively.

"Nap, never speak of this again! My dearest, we need not have come here
for that. Yet I am glad now that we came. It will be holy ground to me as
long as I live. As long as I live," she repeated very earnestly, "I shall
remember that it was here that the door of paradise was opened to us at
last, and that God meant us to enter in."

She lifted her eyes to his with a look half-shy, half-confident. "You
believe in God," she said.

He did not answer at once. He was looking out beyond her for the first
time, and the restless fire had gone out of his eyes. They were still and
deep as a mountain pool.

"Nap," she said in a whisper.

Instantly his look came back to her. He took her face between his hands
with a tenderness so new that it moved her inexplicably to tears.

"I believe in the Power that casts out devils," he said very gravely.
"Luke taught me that much. I guess my wife will teach me the rest."

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KNAVE OF DIAMONDS***

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