"'I love you, too, McCarthy. I suppose you know.' "All this time she never looks at me, but out on the moonlit cove. "'But if we never get off this island,' she says after a little while, 'we never get married.' "'How can we?' I say. 'There is none to marry us.' "She is speaking slowly, seriously, in the moonlight, and every word she says has the weight of sincerity. "'Do you believe, McCarthy, that the church and all the people there and the organ and the rice make a marriage? Are all these necessary, McCarthy? Tell me, please.' "'No.' I think it out. 'The only one necessary is the clergyman.' "'Because he is the representative of--God?' "'Yes,' I say in a minute or so, 'because he is there for--God.' "'And yet God is everywhere? Knows all? Sees everything? Reads the inside of our hearts as easily as the clergyman reads our faces?' "'That is what they say, Janssen. That is--what--we believe--' "There is silence. Then she sinks to her knees in the sand in the moonlight. "'Kneel down, McCarthy, and give me your hands.' I kneel and give her my hands without protest--her voice is so commanding, so sincere. And there is a strange thing between us now. All the time before if I touch her I feel strength flowing from me to her, but to-night when I hold her hands there is an even level. "'If God wishes to hear us to-night, then we are married.' "'But,' I say, 'Janssen, how do we know if He hears us, gives His consent?' "Her eyes wander over the island, over the sea. She points suddenly to the lagoon. "'See, McCarthy. See, under the moon there, that big turtle. He is uncertain where to go.' I look and I see the little black head like a dot on the water and the widening ripple as he swims around. 'See the boatswain bird's rock.' I saw the flat square surface in the cove. 'If he swims to and mounts that rock, then it will be a sign we have been heard and--He has given His consent.' "'But he will never come to the rock, dear Janssen,' I say. 'He is going out with the tide.' "'McCarthy,' she says a little scornfully, 'you are the good man, the untarnished one, the one who was brought up to believe, and you do not. And I, the bad woman, the murderess, the worse than Magdalen because I never loved until now, I believe. I believe and know.' "And then her belief came to me and I turned to see the great turtle. He swam around and around and the moon shot the little ripples in gleaming silk. And at last I could bear it no longer, and I lowered my head; but Janssen still watched with her head high. And I could feel her hands tremble, and then crisp, and then tremble, and suddenly grow firm and fine and powerful. "'Look, McCarthy, look!' Her voice rang like a bell. 'He is come to--he is on the rock.'" "And I raised my head, too, and I saw the Miracle of the Turtle....