disappeared for me. I was
only aware that I was with Hilda once more--and therefore in Paradise.
Pison and Gihon watered the desolate land. Whatever she did seemed to me
supremely right. If she had proposed to me to begin a ponderous work on
Medical Jurisprudence, under the shadow of the big rock, I should have
begun it incontinently.

She handed me her slip of paper; I took it and read: "Sebastian told
you I was Dr. Yorke-Bannerman's daughter. And you answered, 'If so,
Yorke-Bannerman was innocent, and YOU are the poisoner.' Is not that
correct?"

I handed her in answer my own paper. She read it with a faint flush.
When she came to the words: "Either she is not Yorke-Bannerman's
daughter; or else, Yorke-Bannerman was not a poisoner, and someone else
was--I might put a name to him," she rose to her feet with a great rush
of long-suppressed feeling, and clasped me passionately. "My Hubert!"
she cried, "I read you aright. I knew it! I was sure of you!"

I folded her in my arms, there, on the rusty-red South African desert.
"Then, Hilda dear," I murmured, "you will consent to marry me?"

The words brought her back to herself. She unfolded my arms with slow
reluctance. "No, dearest," she said, earnestly, with a face where pride
fought hard against love. "That is WHY, above all things, I did not want
you to follow me. I love you; I trust you: you love me; you trust me.
But I never will marry anyone till I have succeeded in clearing my
father's memory. I KNOW he did not do it; I KNOW Sebastian did. But that
is not enough. I must prove it, I must prove it!"

"I believe it already," I answered. "What need, then, to prove it?"

"To you, Hubert? Oh, no; not to you. There I am safe. But to the world
that condemned him--condemned him untried. I must vindicate him; I must
clear him!"

I bent my face close to hers. "But may I not marry you first?" I
asked--"and after that, I can help you to clear him."

She gazed at me fearlessly. "No, no!" she cried, clasping her hands;
"much as I love you, dear Hubert, I cannot consent to it. I am too
proud!--too proud! I will not allow the world to say--not even to say
falsely"--her face flushed crimson; her voice dropped low--"I will
not allow them to say those hateful words, 'He married a murderer's
daughter.'"

I bowed my head. "As you will, my darling," I answered. "I am content to
wait. I trust you in this, too. Some day, we will prove it."

And all this time, preoccupied as I was