ance to a purer and
better life than he had known before. Had he been worthy of the trust he
asked for, he would have blamed himself less for asking. Tears were hot
and harsh in his throat as the scene unrolled itself before him.

Paul Armstrong--the Paul Armstrong of those irrevocable bygone
years--was striking up and down the sand, and the girl was still weeping
without a sound, when the Exile's thought flew back to them. It was as
if a curtain had descended for an instant only, and had risen again to
reveal the same actors in the same scene.

'I had better leave you now, Madge,' said Paul, half maddened by the
sight of the uncomplaining grief he had awakened. 'I will watch you home
as soon as you care to go, but I won't intrude upon you any longer.'

The slight figure rose from its seat upon the wrack, and stood before
him with downcast and averted head, but he could still see the
tears falling like diamond-drops in the clear moonlight. He turned
irresolutely away, but he had made only a single step before he was
vividly back again with an impulsive and imploring hand upon her
shoulder.

'Tell me,' he said, 'that you forgive me. Tell me that you will be able
to think of me when I am gone with something--some feeling that will not
be all contempt. You won't always despise me, will you, Madge?'

'I shall never despise you,' she answered, in a voice she could barely
control; 'I shall always remember this time.'

'And you don't hate me for having spoken?'

She looked up at him with a strange smile, which was so tender and so
full of pity that he caught his breath at the sight of it.

'No,' she said, 'I shall never hate you. I must be as truthful as you
have been. I must tell you that I had heard something of what you have
told me before we left New Zealand. I didn't know if it were true, and I
did not even wish to ask.'

He stood still with that unconscious hand upon her shoulder, and his
heart gave a leap as he asked:

'You knew I loved you, Madge--you knew I loved you?'

'I was quite sure of that,'she answered 'I have believed it for a long
time.'

'Madge,' he said, 'are you strong enough--are you brave enough--can you
put such faith in me? Can you believe that I will lay a life's unfailing
devotion at your feet--that the very fact that there can be no legal tie
between us will make me always all the truer to you? I swear to you that
if you trust yourself to me, my whole life shall be one act of gratitude