"I think you might better." "Yes; of course we'll go back directly." Another silence. Lawrence made no movement to turn. Then he coldly suggested that, now they were out, they might as well run across the bay. To this there was no reply. After awhile Prudence asked softly, leaning near, that she might be heard, "I hope you're not too unhappy because you happen to be with me; are you?" "No." "You know I'm not to blame. You know I didn't plan it." "I know that." The boat went on. Neither of the two spoke for a long time. Then Lawrence put a question. "Are you miserable?" "No." "And yet I'm not Lord Maxwell." "Oh, please don't!" "Prudence, give me your hand." The girl's hand, cold as an icicle, was reached towards him, and was instantly crushed in his. He must still hold the tiller with his other hand, must still think of his boat. "Prudence--" he hesitated. He heard her whisper, "Rodney--" Then he cried, "Why did you do such a damnable thing? Why? Why? We might have been two years man and wife." At first she made no reply. He felt her shiver, then draw nearer to him. The wind drove a blast towards them, and then all at once grew more gentle. "I was mad to do it," she said, "and now I am punished,--punished cruelly,--and I shall suffer all my life. But you're going to be happy. I'm glad of that." There were pauses between her sentences. "Shall you be glad to have me happy with some one else?" His voice had fallen to the cadence she remembered so well. "Anything,--anything,--so that you are happy." She spoke passionately, and she sobbed heavily after her words. Lawrence drew himself away, as if by command of something outside of himself. Then quickly he came nearer. He put his free arm about her and kissed her; he kissed her again and again, her lips responding to his caress, touching his own as they had done--ah, how long ago was it? It seemed as if time had been annihilated and he was back to that day when she had said she loved him. And how he had loved her!--as the cataract rushes over the cliff; the old trite comparison was the true one. At the meeting of their lips the torrent rushed over his soul again. What did anything matter, so that he had her again? Her arms were about his neck, her face was against his. He heard her say, "Dearest," in the same tone in which she had first spoken it to him, more than two years ago,--the tone he had tried to forget. "We are not to blame," she said. "We didn't try to meet. It was a blessed chance,--oh, a blessed chance! And now we have met, how can we part?" She hung upon him. She seemed to have flung from her all the self-control which she knew so well how to maintain. It was as if her love had mastered all else; Lawrence felt it to be thus. It was love for him, he felt, that was stronger than everything besides. This conviction went to his head; it made him long to forget the present, that was not hers, in that past which had been hers.