"Pauline,"--Dr. Sharpe's voice was low,--"Pauline!"

Pauline turned her beautiful head. "There are marriages for this world;
true and honorable marriages, but for this world. But there is a
marriage for eternity,--a marriage of souls."

Now Myron Sharpe is not a fool, but that is precisely what he said to
Miss Pauline Dallas, out in the boat on that September night. If wiser
men than Myron Sharpe never uttered more unpardonable nonsense under
similar circumstances, cast your stones at him.

"Perhaps so," said Miss Dallas, with a sigh; "but see! How dark it has
grown while we have been talking. We shall be caught in a squall; but I
shall not be at all afraid--with you."

They were caught indeed, not only in a squall, but in the steady force
of a driving northeasterly storm setting in doggedly with a very ugly
fog. If Miss Dallas was not at all afraid--with him, she was
nevertheless not sorry when they grated safely on the dull white beach.

They had had a hard pull in against the tide. Sky and sea were black.
The fog crawled like a ghost over flat and cliff and field. The rain
beat upon them as they turned to walk up the beach.

Pauline stopped once suddenly.

"What was that?"

"I heard nothing."