She was looking out over the ocean, a brush idly poised in her hand.  I saw the profile of her sweet face as I stood motionless for an instant, not five yards away.

“Grace!” I softly said.

That easel with its unfinished canvas was tipped to the rocks as with a startled cry she sprang to her feet.  For one agonising moment I gazed into her startled eyes and saw her quivering lips.

[Illustration:  “And then I saw her!”]

“Jack!” she cried, and we were in each other’s arms.

I cannot write what we did or said during the first sweet minutes which followed, for I do not know.  I only know that we told each other the most rapturous news which comes to mortal ears.  Oh, the wonder of it!

We lived and we loved!  This great earth with its blue-domed sky, its fields, its flowers and its heaving seas became ours to enjoy “till death us do part!”

There we sat amid the ruins where kings and queens had been born; where they had lived, loved and died centuries agone.  Their ashes mingled with the dust from which they sprang; of their pomp and splendour naught remained save the walls which crumbled over our heads; since their time the world had been born anew, but the god of Love who came to them now smiled on us, his heart as youthful, his figure as beautiful and his ardour as strong as when he whispered sweet words into the ears of the lovers who dwelt in Eden.

I had forgotten that we ever had quarrelled.  As we sat there looking out on the sea it seemed as if we had always known of each other’s love.

“Sweetheart,” I asked, “when did you first know that I loved you?”

“When I became angry at you,” she replied.

“When you became angry at me?” I repeated, and then the thought of the anguish through which I had passed recalled itself.

“Darling!” I exclaimed, “why did you treat me so?  What had I done?  Sweetheart, you do not know how I have suffered!”

“But you must have known all the time that I loved you,” she said, a strange smile on her lips.

“How could I know?” I faltered.

“Could you not tell?” she asked, lifting her dancing eyes to mine.  “Who was the inspired author of lines which run like this:  ’I have received that glorious message!  Grace Harding loves me!  The message was transmitted from the depths of her beautiful eyes!  It has been confirmed by the gentle pressure of her hand as it rested on my arm!  It has been echoed in the accents of her sweet voice!  I have read it in the blush which mantles her cheek as I draw near, and I know it from a thousand little tokens which my heart understands and which my feeble words cannot express.  I am—­’”

‘"I am an ass,’ is the amended and proper ending of that sentence,” I humbly said.  “I beg of you, tell me how you ever came to see those words from my miserable diary!”

“It makes me mad even now when I think of it!” she declared, vainly attempting to release her hand.  “You great big stupid; do you not know what you did?”