m the case, to forget, and blot everything from memory. But
something stronger than will prevented; I could not desert you; could not
believe you were wilfully wrong. You understand what I mean."

"Yes," the words barely reaching him. "It was the other girl; she
undermined your faith."

"That is the truth; yet how could it be, do you suppose? My very love
should have enabled me to detect the difference. I can see now, thinking
back, where the fraud was even apparent--in mood, temper, action--and yet
at the time these made no such impression. Even Sexton never questioned
her identity; in face, figure, dress the resemblance was absolutely
perfect. Good heavens, but she is an actress!"

She touched his arm with her hand, and under the slight pressure he
looked aside at her.

"You know now," she said softly, "and I know. All this is passed and gone
between us. We are here alone, the sport of the waves, and I have no
reason to be other than frank. I believe in you, Matthew West; in your
honesty and manhood. You say you love me?"

"With all my heart and soul; it seems to me now I have always loved
you--you came to me, the lady of my dreams."

Her eyes were wet with unshed tears, yet she smiled back into his face,
her voice trembling as she answered.

"And I," she said slowly, "have had no thought but of you since our
morning in the garden together. How far away that seems."

"You mean you love me?"

"Yes; I love you; there is no word stronger, but I would speak it--is
that not enough?"

He held her in his arms, in spite of the trembling raft, tossed by the
swell of the sea, and crushed her against him in the ardent strain of
passion. An instant she held her head back, her eyes gazing straight into
his; then, with sigh of content, yielded, and their lips met, and clung.

The very silence aroused them, startled both into a swift realization of
that dreary waste in which they floated helplessly alone, a drifting chip
on the face of the waters. Her eyes swept the crest of the waves, and she
withdrew herself partially from his arms.

"Why, we must be crazed to dream of happiness here," she exclaimed. "Was
there ever before so strange a confession of love? I am trying to be
brave--but--but that is too much; that waste of green water, with the
grey sky overhead. There is no ending to it--just death mocking us in
every wave. Oh, Matthew, can this be all? Only this little moment, and
then--the end?"

He held her hands