so it came to pass that she sailed for England in the same boat as
Freddy. He had hurried through his business and had managed to secure
a passage, so as to look after her and be a companion to her on her
disconsolate voyage.

On the journey to Marseilles, Margaret discovered qualities in Freddy's
character which, even with all her love for him, she had never
imagined. For her sake he contrived to hide his anger at Michael for
his treatment of her, and thus express a sympathetic understanding of
the temptations which had beset him. If Margaret had not suffered, he
would have ignored the affair altogether, as a matter which did not
concern him. Freddy was very far-seeing. Margaret had kept her
promise; she had shown that in spite of her romantic love for Michael
her womanly pride had not been wanting. Any opposition or harsh
denouncement of her lover would have brought out the obstinacy in her
Lampton character. Persecution inflames the ardour of both love and
religion. Margaret had confided to Freddy the true state of her
feelings--her love was perhaps even greater than ever for the tardy
Michael; jealousy had invigorated and reinforced it: but her pride and
her love were wounded, and until Michael wrote to her or came to her,
with a full and absolute apology and a good reason for his silence, she
was determined not to play the part of a woman whose love would submit
to any sort of casual treatment.

Freddy was well content. Time would settle things; Margaret was very
young; she was scarcely aware yet of the possibilities that were in her
own nature, of the things which can make life worth living, as apart
from love and its passions. Love had buried her under an avalanche of
its mystery and revelations.

Their journey home was as uneventful as it was surprising, for summer
on the Mediterranean, where there is no spring, opened Margaret's eyes
to a new phase of Nature's beauty. There was so much to see, and
Freddy was such an excellent companion, that the time passed far more
quickly and happily than Margaret could have believed possible. Did
she know that it was the guarded light, which dispersed her brooding
thoughts, thoughts which tried to spoil the beauty of the fairest
scenes she had ever seen?

It was a voyage of solace and healing. As they sat together, the
brother and sister, idly watching the spell of light resting on an
archipelago of dreaming islands, or sailed out of the Bay of Naples on
a