in the
details with a liberal hand and in high colours.

Juanna took it all for granted. Again she shivered, and her lips turned
grey with pain. She understood now that she had loved him ever since
the night when they first met in the slave camp. It was her love, as
yet unrecognised, which, transforming her, had caused her to behave so
badly. It had been dreadful to her to think that she should be thrust
upon this man in a mock marriage; it was worse to know that he had
entered on her rescue not for her own sake, but in the hope of winning
wealth. In the moment of her loss Juanna learned for the first time what
she had gained. She had played and lost, and she could never throw those
dice again; it was begun and finished.

So Juanna thought and felt. A little more experience of the world might
have taught her differently. But she had no experience, and in such
novels as she had read the hero seldom varied in the pursuit of his
first love, or turned to look upon _another_. Ah! if all heroes and
heroines acted up to this golden rule, what an uncommonly dull world it
would be!

Juanna gathered her energies, and spoke in a low steady voice. "Mr.
Outram," she said, "I am so much obliged to you for telling me all this.
It interests me a great deal, and I earnestly hope that Soa's tale of
treasure will turn out to be true, and that you may win it by my help.
It will be some slight return for all that you have done for me. Yes, I
hope that you will win it, and buy back your home, and after your years
of toil and danger live there in honour, and happiness, and--love, as
you deserve to do. And now I ask you to forgive me my behaviour, my
rudeness, and my bitter speeches. It has been shameful, I know; perhaps
you will make some excuse for me when you remember all that I have
gone through. My nerves were shaken, I was not myself--I acted like a
half-wild minx. There, that is all."

As she spoke Juanna began to draw the signet-ring from her left hand.
But she never completed the act. It was his gift to her, the only
outward link between her and the man whom she had lost--why should she
part with it? It reminded her of so much. She knew now that this
mock marriage was in a sense a true one; that is, so far as she was
concerned, for from that hour she had indeed given her spirit into his
keeping--not herself, but her better half and her love; and those solemn
words over her in that dreadful place and time had consecrated the
gift.