Oh, she was weary! How lovely was the falling night, see how it brooded on the seas! and how clear were the waters—there a fish passed by her paddle—and there the first start sprang into the sky! If only Geoffrey were here to see it with her. Geoffrey! she had lost him; she was alone in the world now—alone with the sea and the stars. Well, they were better than men—better than all men except one. Theirs was a divine companionship, and it soothed her. Ah, how hateful had been Elizabeth’s face, more hateful even than the half-crazed cunning of Owen Davies, when she stretched her hand towards her and called her “a scarlet woman.” It was so like Elizabeth, this mixing up of Bible terms with her accusation. And after all perhaps it was true.—What was it, “Though thy sins be as scarlet, yet shall they be white as snow.” But that was only if one repented. She did not repent, not in the least. Conscience, it is true, reproached her with a breach of temporal and human law, but her heart cried that such love as she had given was immortal and divine, and therefore set beyond the little bounds of time and man. At any rate, she loved Geoffrey and was proud and glad to love him. The circumstances were unfortunate, but she did not make the world or its social arrangements any more than she had made herself, and she could not help that. The fact remained, right or wrong—she loved him, loved him! How clear were the waters! What was that wild dream which she had dreamt about herself sitting at the bottom of the sea, and waiting for him—till at last he came. Sitting at the bottom of the sea—why did it strike her so strangely—what unfamiliar thought did it waken in her mind? Well, and why not? It would be pleasant there, better at any rate than on the earth. But things cannot be ended so; one is burdened with the flesh, and one must wear it till it fails. Why must she wear it? Was not the sea large enough to hide her bones? Look now, she had but to slip over the edge of the canoe, slip without a struggle into those mighty arms, and in a few short minutes it would all be done and gone! She gasped as the thought struck home. _Here_ was the answer to her questionings, the same answer that is given to every human troubling, to all earthly hopes and fears and strivings. One stroke of that black knife and everything would be lost or found. Would it be so great a thing to give her life for Geoffrey?—why she had well nigh done as much when she had known him but an hour, and now that he was all in all, oh, would it be so great a thing? If she died—died secretly, swiftly, surely—Geoffrey would be saved; they would not trouble him then, there would be no one to trouble about: Owen Davies could not marry her then, Geoffrey could not ruin himself over her, Elizabeth could pursue her no further. It would be well to do this thing for Geoffrey, and he would always love her, and beyond that black curtain there might be something better.