ight have been
offended, and so bitter; but he was neither. Her tears, her sobs, her
clinging, her burning cheeks, the flood of her words, or the sudden
ebb which left her speechless--all this taught him what he might be to
a woman who dared give him so much. He said very little himself, and
exacted the last dregs from her cup. He drank it down like a thirsty
horse. Probably it was as sweet for him to drink as for her to pour;
for love is a strange affair and can be its own poison and antidote.

At the end he forgot his magnanimity, so great was his need of hers.
"You have opened my eyes to my own fatuity. You have made me what I
never thought I could be. I am your lover--do you know that? And I
have been your husband for how long? Your husband, Lucy, and now your
lover. Never let these things trouble you any more."

She clung to him with passion. "I love you," she said. "I adore you.
If I've been wicked, it was to prove you good to me, and to crush me
to the earth. Love me again--I am yours forever."

Later she was able to talk freely to him, as of a thing past and done.
"It's very odd; I can't understand it. You didn't begin to love me
until he did, and then you loved me for what he saw in me. Isn't that
true?"

"I couldn't tell you," he said, "because I don't know what he did
see."

"He thought I was pretty--"

"So you are--"

"He thought that I liked to be noticed--"

"Well, and you do--"

"Of course. But it never struck you."

"No--fool that I was."

"I love you for your foolishness."

"Yes, but you didn't."

"No," she said quickly. "No! because you wouldn't allow it. You must
let women love before you can expect them to be meek."

He laughed. "Do you intend to be meek?"

Then it was her turn to laugh. "I should think I did! That's my pride
and joy. You may do what you like now."

He found that a hard saying; but it is a very true one.

The departure was made early. Lucy came down to breakfast, and the
boys; but Margery Dacre did not appear. Vera of course did not. Noon
was her time. The boys were to cross the fiord with them and return in
the boat. Lucy would not go, seeing what was the matter with Urquhart.

Urquhart indeed was in a parlous frame of mind. He was very grim to
all but the boys. He was to them what he had always been. Polite and
very quiet in his ways with Lucy, he had no word for either of his
companions. James treated him with deference; Francis Lingen, who felt
himself de