would become of her if you told her that you loved me and what would
become of me if you married her?"

He gulped down a great lump and the perspiration oozed from his pores.
Her face was troubled and full of earnestness.

"What could I say to her?" He began to pace back and forth beneath the
awning. She watched him pityingly, understanding his struggle.

"Now you know, Hugh, why I want to live here forever. I have thought of
all this," she said softly, holding out her hand to him. He took it
feverishly, gaining courage from its gentle touch.

"It is better that she should mourn for me as dead," he said at last,
"than to have me come back to her with love for another in my breast.
Nedra is the safest place in all the world, after all, dearest. I can't
bear to think of her waiting for me if she is alive, waiting to--to be
my wife. Poor, poor girl!"

"We have been unhappy enough for to-day. Let us forget the world and all
its miseries, now that we both love the island well enough to live and
die on its soil. Have you thought how indescribably alone we are,
perhaps for the rest of our lives? Years and years may be spent here.
Let them all be sweet and good and happy. You know I would be your wife
if I could, but I cannot unless Providence takes us by the hands and
lifts us to the land where some good man can say: 'Whom God hath joined,
let not man put asunder.'"

The next day after breakfast she took him by the hand and led him to the
little knoll down by the hills. Her manner was resolute; there was a