wrong, and I am afraid, too, that in your secret heart you would
admit it."

"No, never!" he exclaimed. "If there was any wrong done, it was wholly
of my own doing. I was alone to blame. I ought to have remembered that
you were married, and perhaps--yes, I did remember it in a way, but I
could not realize it. I had never seen or heard of your husband, or
heard of your marriage. He was a perfectly unreal person to me, and
you--you seemed only the Mary Blake that I had known, and as I had known
you. I said what I did that night upon an impulse which was as
unpremeditated as it was sudden. I don't see how you were wrong. You
couldn't have foreseen what took place--and----"

"Have you not been sorry for what took place?" she asked, with her eyes
on the ground. "Have you not thought the less of me since?"

He turned and looked at her. There was a little smile upon her lips and
on her downcast eyes.

"No, by Heaven!" he exclaimed desperately, "I have not, and I am not
sorry. Whether I ought to have said what I did or not, it was true, and
I wanted you to know----"

He broke off as she turned to him with a smile and a blush. The smile
was almost a laugh.

"But, John," she said, "I am not Mrs. Edward Ruggles. I am Mary Blake."

* * * * *

The parapet was fifty feet above the terrace. The hedge of box was an
impervious screen.

* * * * *

Well, and then, after a little of that sort of thing, they both began
hurriedly to admire the view again, for some one was coming. But
it was only one of the gardeners, who did not understand
English; and confidence being once more restored, they fell to
discussing--everything.

"Do you think you could live in Homeville, dear?" asked John after a
while.

"I suppose I shall have to, shall I not?" said Mary. "And are you, too,
really happy, John?"

John instantly proved to her that he was. "But it almost makes me
unhappy," he added, "to think how nearly we have missed each other. If I
had only known in the beginning that you were not Mrs. Edward Ruggles!"

Mary laughed joyously. The mistake which a moment before had seemed
almost tragic now appeared delightfully funny.

"The explanation is painfully simple," she answered. "Mrs. Edward
Ruggles--the real one--did expect to come on the Vaterland, whereas I
did not. But the day before the steamer sailed she was summoned to
Andover by the serious illness of her only son