ipped to her knees beside him.

"Saint Michel, do you believe in me now?"

"Believe in you? I don't know whether I believe in you or not. But I
know I love you! . . . That's all that matters. I love you!"

"No, no!" She resisted his arms that sought to draw her back into his
embrace. "I want more than that. I'm beginning to realise things. There
must be trust in love. . . . Michael, I'm not really hard--and selfish,
as they say. I've been foolish and thoughtless, perhaps. But I've
never done any harm. Not real harm. I've never"--she laughed a little
brokenly--"I've never turned men into swine, Michael. . . . I've hurt
people, sometimes, by letting them love me. But, I didn't know, then!
Now--now I know what love is, I shall be different. Quite different.
Saint Michel, I know now--love is self-surrender."

The tremulous sweetness of her, the humble submissiveness of her appeal,
could not but win their way. Michael's lingering disbelief wavered and
broke. She had been foolish, spoilt and thoughtless, but she had never
done any real harm. Men had loved her--but how could it be otherwise?
And perhaps, after all, they were none the worse for having loved her.

Deliberately Michael flung the past behind him and with it his last
doubt of her. He drew her back into his arms, against his heart, and
their lips met in a kiss that held not only love but utter faith and
confidence--a pledge for all time.

"Beloved!" he whispered. "My beloved!"

CHAPTER XX

NIGHT

Michael and Magda stood together on the deck of the crippled yacht which
now rocked idly on a quite placid sea. Dusk was falling. That first
glorious, irrecoverable hour when love had come into its own was past,
and the consideration of things mundane was forcing itself on their
notice--more especially consideration of their particular plight.

"It looks rather as though we may have to spend the night here,"
observed Quarrington, his eyes scanning the channel void of any welcome
sight of sail or funnel.

Magda's brows drew together in a little troubled frown.

"Marraine and Gillian will be frightfully worried and anxious," she said
uneasily. It was significant of the gradual alteration in her outlook
that this solicitude for others should have rushed first of anything to
her lips.

"Yes." He spoke with a curious abruptness. "Besides, that's not the only
point. There's--Mrs. Grundy."

Magda shrugged her shoulders and laughed.

"Well, if it's to come to