aurence," Norine's bright voice called, "you know everything. Come and
tell me what is this botanical specimen I have found growing here in the
cleft of the rocks."

She held up a spray of blue blossom. Laurence looked at it languidly.

"I know everything, I admit, but I don't know that. If you had married
old Gilbert now, my darling, your thirst for information might have been
quenched. There isn't anything, from the laws of the nations down to the
name of every weed that grows, he hasn't at his learned legal finger
ends. Oh, Lord, Norry, what a long day this has been--fifty-eight hours
if one."

He casts himself on the sands at her feet, pulls his hat over his eyes,
and yawns long and loudly. Her happy face clouds, the dark, lovely eyes
look at him wistfully.

"It is dull for you, dear," she says, tenderly, a little tremor in the
soft, sweet tones; "for me the days seem all too short--I am so happy,
I suppose." He glances up at her, struggling feebly with a whole
mouthful of gapes.

"You _are_ happy, then, Norry, are you? Almost as happy as when at home;
almost as happy as if you had married that ornament of society, Richard
Gilbert, instead of the scapegrace and outlaw, Laurence Thorndyke?"

She clasped her hands, always her habit when moved.

"So happy!" she said, under her breath; "so perfectly, utterly happy.
How could I ever have thought of marrying any one but you, Laurence--you
whom I loved from the very very first?"

"And"--he has the grace to hesitate a little--"it would make you very
unhappy if we were forced to part, I suppose, Norry?"

"Part?" She starts, grows very white, and two dilated eyes turn to him.
"Laurence, why do you ask me that? Unhappy? Mon Dieu! it would kill
me--just that!"

He laughs a little, but uneasily, and shifts away from the gaze of the
large, terrified eyes.

"Kill you? No, you're not the sort that die so easily. Don't look so
white and frightened, child; I didn't mean anything, at least, not
anything serious; only we have been almost a month here and it is about
time I went to pay my respected Uncle Darcy a visit. He has taken to
asking unpleasant questions of late--where I am, what I am doing, why I
don't report myself at headquarters--meaning his house in New York.
Norry, there's no help for it; I'll have to take a run up to New York."

She sits down suddenly, her hand over her heart, white as the dress she
wears.

"Of course I need not stay long," Mr. Thorndyke p