cliff on the same night in a fit of drunkenness and was killed. That's
all the story. You know the rest. I'm sorry--I'm very sorry--I hadn't the
decency to tell you before we married."

"You--needn't be sorry, dear," she said very gently.

He looked at her. "Do you mean that, Vera? Do you mean it makes no
difference to you?"

She met his eyes with a shining tenderness in her own that gave her a
womanliness which he had never seen in her before. "No," she said, "I
don't mean that. I mean that I'm glad nothing happened to--to prevent my
marrying you. I mean--that I love you ten times more for telling me now."

He gathered her impulsively close in his arms, kissing her with lips that
trembled. "My own girl! My own generous wife! I'll make up to you," he
vowed. "I'll give you such love as you've never dreamed of. I've been a
brute to you often--often. But that's over. I'll make you happy now--if
it kills me!"

She laughed softly, with a quivering exultation, between his kisses.
"That wouldn't make me happy in the least. And I don't think you will
find it so hard as that either. You've begun already--quite nicely. Now
that we understand each other, we can never make really serious
mistakes again."

Thereafter, they sat and talked in the firelight for a long time,
closely, intimately, as friends united after a long separation. And in
that talk the last barrier between them crumbled away, and a bond that
was very sacred took its place.

In the end the striking of the clock above them awoke Vera to the
lateness of the hour. "My dear Edward, it's to-morrow morning already!
Wouldn't it be a good idea to go to bed?"

"Of course," he said. "You must be half dead. Thoughtless brute that I
am!" He let her go out of his arms at last, but in a moment paused,
looking at her with an odd wistfulness. "You're sure you've forgiven me?
Sure you won't think it over and find you've made a mistake?"

Her hands were on his shoulders. Her eyes looked straight into his. "I am
quite sure," she said.

He began to smile. "What makes you so generous, I wonder? I never thought
you had it in you."

She leaned towards him, a great glow on her face which made her wonderful
in his sight. "Oh, my dear," she said, "I never had before. But I can
afford to be generous now. What does the past matter when I know that the
present and the future are all my own?"

His smile passed. He met her look steadfastly. "As long as I live," he
said, "so shall