He walked along the lamp-lit streets with the light foot of triumphant love. Vera's pale distress and unwise questioning had set his heart beating with the presage of victory. Poor child! For his acute perceptions, the heart of a woman had seldom been a mystery, and this woman's heart was easier to read than most. Poor child! She had been trying to live without him. She had fought her poor little battle, with more of resolution and of courage than he would have expected from a creature so tender. She had kept him out of her life for a long time--time that had seemed an eternity for him, in his longing for her; and then, at a word, at a smile, at the touch of his hand, she had yielded, and had let him see that to be with him was to be happy, and that nothing else mattered. Light love had been his portion in the light years of youth; but this was no light love. He had sacrificed his career for the sake of a woman; but the sacrifice had been forced upon him, and it had killed his love. But now he was prepared for any sacrifice--for the sacrifice of life-long exile, and strained means. He thought of a home in a summer isle of the great southern ocean, like Stevenson's; or, if gaiety were better, in some romantic city of Spanish America. There were paradises enough in the world, there would be no one to point the finger of scorn, where "Society" was a word of no meaning. He would carry his love to the world's end, beyond the reach of shame. Nothing mattered but Vera. Yes, there was one who mattered. His mother! But to-night he could not even think of her, or if he thought of her it was to tell himself that if Provana divorced his wife, and he and Vera were married, his mother would be reconciled to the inevitable. Her religion would be a stumbling block. To her mind such a marriage would be no marriage. To-night he could not reason, he would not see obstacles in his path. Vera's pale looks and anxious questions had been a confession of love, a forecast of surrender; and in the tumult of his thoughts there was no room for hesitation or for fear. He thought of his love now as duty. It was his duty to rescue this dear girl from a loveless union with a hard man of business, old enough to be her father, from splendours and luxuries that had become as dust and ashes. He had known for a long time that she cared for him; but he had never reckoned the strength of her attachment. Only this afternoon, in her radiant happiness, as they walked through the unromantic streets; only in her pale distress to-night, as she questioned him, had he discovered his power: and now there seemed to be but one possible issue--a new life for them both.