very anticipated thought and wish a
triumph more worth living for than everything else in the wide world?"
He moved close to her side. "Do you not think so too?" She said nothing.

"I think so," he said. "There is no pleasure like the pleasure of trying
to understand what a woman wants; there is no sorrow like the sorrow of
failing to do that; and there is no glory like the glory of success. It
is a divine task for any man, and the greatest have thought it worthy of
them." Still she was silent; and so was he for a little while, looking
at her side face, for she had thrown back the veil and her delicate
profile showed clearly against the sea foam.

"Countess," he said at last; and his voice came and went fitfully with
the breeze--"I would give my whole life's strength and study for the
gladness of foreseeing one little thing that you might wish, and of
doing it for you." His hand stole along the taffrail till it touched
hers, but he did not lift his fingers from the polished wood.

"Dr. Claudius, you would give too much," she said; for the magic of the
hour and place was upon her, and the Doctor's earnest tones admitted of
no laughing retort. She ought to have checked him then, and the instant
she had spoken she knew it; but before she could speak again he had
taken the hand he was already touching between both of his, and was
looking straight in her face.

"Margaret, I love you with all my soul and heart and strength." Her hand
trembled in his, but she could not take it away. Before she had answered
he had dropped to his knee and was pressing the gloved fingers to his
lips.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," he repeated, and his strength was
as the strength of ten in that moment.

"Dr. Claudius," said she at last, in a broken and agitated way, "you
ought not to have said this. It was not right of you." She tried to
loose her hand, but he rose to his feet still clasping it.

"Forgive me," he said, "forgive me!" His face was almost luminously
pale. "All the ages cannot take from me this--that I have told you."

Margaret said never a word, but covered her head with her veil and
glided noiselessly away, leaving Claudius with his white face and
staring eyes to the contemplation of what he had done. And she went
below and sat in her stateroom and tried to think it all over. She was
angry, she felt sure. She was angry at Claudius and half angry at
herself--at least she thought so. She was disappointed, she said, in