o on with the humiliating confession--"since that
business between you and the lieutenant. That has been the thorn in my
flesh," he said, gently, as if opening his inmost heart to her, "which I
have not been able to get rid of, in spite of my better reason. And I
don't know but what it may still be there. There lies my weakness--I
tell it you plainly and honestly; but at the same time I can't give you
up, Elizabeth.

"I have always seen," he continued, "that the proper husband for you
would have been a man who was something in the world--such a one as he,
and not a man of no position like me. In my pride I never could bear the
thought--and it is that that has made me so full of rancour against all
the world, and so suspicious and bad towards you. I have not been strong
enough--not like you--but I can truly say I have struggled with my
weakness, Elizabeth," he said, pale with intensity of feeling, and
laying both his hands on her shoulders, and looking into her face.

She felt that his arms were trembling, and her eyes filled with
tears--it went to her heart to see him like this. All at once on a
sudden thought she withdrew herself from his hands and went into the
little room adjoining the one they were in, and opened a drawer there.
She came out with the old note in her hand and held it out to him--

"That is the letter I wrote to the lieutenant the night I left the
Becks'."

He looked at her a little wonderingly.

"Fru Beck gave it to me," she said. "Read it, Salve."

He looked at the large clumsy writing and spelt out--

"Forgive me that I cannot be your wife, for my heart is given to
another.--Elizabeth Raklev."

He sat down on the bench and read it over again, while she bent over
him, looking now at the writing, and now at his face.

"What do you find there, Salve?" she asked. "Why could I not be Beck's
wife?"

"'Because my heart is given to another,'" he answered, slowly, and
looking up at her with moistened eyes.

"Not yours; it is I who loved another. And who was that other?"

"God bless you--it was me!" he said, and drew her down upon his knee
into a long, long embrace.

* * * * *

The boys had become tired of waiting down at the boat, the "bagman"
especially, since it was clearly past dinner-time; the bell had rung
over at the dry-dock, and the town boys had already passed from school.
His white head and heated face appeared now at the kitchen-door, and
with scar