At last he seemed to have strung himself for an effort, and spoke, without looking up.

“Mr. Thurnall!”

“Sir?”

“I have done you a great wrong!”

“We will say no more about it, sir.  It was a mistake, and I do not wish to complicate the question.  My true ground of quarrel with you is your conduct to Miss Lavington.  She seems to have told you her true name, so I shall call her by it.”

“What I have done, I have undone!” said Stangrave, looking up.  “If I have wronged her, I have offered to right her; if I have left her, I have sought her again; and if I left her when I knew nothing, now that I know all, I ask her here, before you, to become my wife!”

Tom looked inquiringly at Marie.

“Yes; I have told him all—­all?” and she hid her face in her hands.

“Well,” said Tom, “Mr. Stangrave is a very enviable person; and the match in a worldly point of view, is a most fortunate one for Miss Lavington; and that stupid rascal of a gendarme has broken my revolver.”

“But I have not accepted him,” cried Marie; “and I will not unless you give me leave.”

Tom saw Stangrave’s brow lower, and pardonably enough, at this.

“My dear Miss Lavington, as I have never been able to settle my own love affairs satisfactorily to myself, I do not feel at all competent to settle other people’s.  Good-bye!  I shall be late for the steamer.”  And, bowing to Stangrave and Marie, he turned to go.

“Sabina!  Stop him!” cried she; “he is going, without even a kind word!”

“Sabina,” whispered Tom as he passed her,—­“a had business—­selfish coxcomb; when her beauty goes, won’t stand her temper and her flightiness:  but I know you and Claude will take care of the poor thing, if anything happens to me.”

“You’re wrong—­prejudiced—­indeed!”

“Tut, tut, tut!—­Good-bye, you sweet little sunbeam.  Good morning, gentlemen!”

And Tom hurried up the slope and out of sight, while Marie burst into an agony of weeping.

“Gone, without a kind word!”

Stangrave bit his lip, not in anger, but in manly self-reproach.

“It is my fault, Marie! my fault!  He knew me too well of old, and had too much reason to despise me!  But he shall have reason no longer.  He will come back, and find me worthy of you; and all will be forgotten.  Again I say it, I accept your quest, for life and death.  So help me God above, as I will not fail or falter, till I have won justice for you and for your race!  Marie?”

He conquered:  how could he but conquer! for he was man, and she was woman; and he looked more noble in her eyes, while he was confessing his past weakness, than he had ever done in his proud assertion of strength.

But she spoke no word in answer.  She let him take her hand, pass her arm through his, and lead her away, as one who had a right.

They walked down the hill behind the rest of the party, blest, but silent and pensive; he with the weight of the future, she with that of the past.