She met his eyes with a shining tenderness in her own that gave her a womanliness which he had never seen in her before.  “No,” she said, “I don’t mean that.  I mean that I’m glad nothing happened to—­to prevent my marrying you.  I mean—­that I love you ten times more for telling me now.”

He gathered her impulsively close in his arms, kissing her with lips that trembled.  “My own girl!  My own generous wife!  I’ll make up to you,” he vowed.  “I’ll give you such love as you’ve never dreamed of.  I’ve been a brute to you often—­often.  But that’s over.  I’ll make you happy now—­if it kills me!”

She laughed softly, with a quivering exultation, between his kisses.  “That wouldn’t make me happy in the least.  And I don’t think you will find it so hard as that either.  You’ve begun already—­quite nicely.  Now that we understand each other, we can never make really serious mistakes again.”

Thereafter, they sat and talked in the firelight for a long time, closely, intimately, as friends united after a long separation.  And in that talk the last barrier between them crumbled away, and a bond that was very sacred took its place.

In the end the striking of the clock above them awoke Vera to the lateness of the hour.  “My dear Edward, it’s to-morrow morning already!  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go to bed?”

“Of course,” he said.  “You must be half dead.  Thoughtless brute that I am!” He let her go out of his arms at last, but in a moment paused, looking at her with an odd wistfulness.  “You’re sure you’ve forgiven me?  Sure you won’t think it over and find you’ve made a mistake?”

Her hands were on his shoulders.  Her eyes looked straight into his.  “I am quite sure,” she said.

He began to smile.  “What makes you so generous, I wonder?  I never thought you had it in you.”

She leaned towards him, a great glow on her face which made her wonderful in his sight.  “Oh, my dear,” she said, “I never had before.  But I can afford to be generous now.  What does the past matter when I know that the present and the future are all my own?”

His smile passed.  He met her look steadfastly.  “As long as I live,” he said, “so shall it be.”

And the kiss that passed between them was as the sealing of a vow.

CHAPTER IV

COUNSEL

Juliet and Columbus sat in a sheltered nook on the shore and gazed thoughtfully out to sea.  It was a warm morning after a night of tempest, and the beach was strewn with seaweed after an unusually high tide.