And how strange, how unaccountable, that he should have found her in the boat. Was it a blessed chance? Another and a wilder rush of wind; a black cloud just overhead sent down a dash of wind, which ceased as suddenly as it began. It seemed to Lawrence that he had great presence of mind because he continued to keep control of the rudder. He tried to think as well as to feel, but his quick-coursing blood prevented thought. How could he ever have believed for one moment that he loved Carolyn? Why, his whole heart belonged to this woman who was clinging to him as if it would be death to her to be put away. He wished to speak, to say something that he ought to say, but his voice stopped in his throat. The _Vireo_ flashed by a dark body that had a light shining at its bows,--some ship swinging at anchor. Vaguely Lawrence heard a man on the deck above him shout out something, he could not distinguish what. He and Prudence were flying through space--together. Then, still vaguely, and with a threatening horror, he thought of that picture of Francesca and her lover flying always through trackless air, never stopping, gulfs below them, infinitude above them. They had supped full of love, and now-- "Dearest!" It was the voice of Prudence saying that word again. Lawrence wished to rouse himself to some sense of duty; but duty appeared to be something indefinite and very far away; and then perhaps he had been cherishing some old-fashioned, mistaken sense of what was duty. If that was so-- "Are you going to turn towards the shore?" Prudence asked the question as if she were speaking of a thing impossible to do. She was looking at him with eyes whose beauty and deep, seductive power he could perceive through the dusk. He held her still closer. "Do you tell me to turn?" he murmured. He knew that she hesitated; he felt a slight shudder go through her frame. Her very hesitation spurred him. "If you tell me to turn," he said, in the same half-tone, close to her cheek, "I shall obey. But you will not tell me." Silence. The spray from the waves sprinkled over the two. Far ahead, but growing brighter, a line of lights showed where the north shore curved. Prudence pressed still nearer to him. "God forgive me!" she cried; "but I can't ask you to go back." "And if we go on now, we shall not part again?" He spoke rapidly; there was a note of desperation in his words which she perceived. "Go on," she said; "we will never part again." She kissed his lips lightly, then put her head on his breast. "God forgive us! God forgive us!" Lawrence also cried; and he added, as he held his burden tightly, "I can't let you go. No, not if heaven and hell tried to part us. Now you are mine." But not all the intoxication of that moment could prevent the picture of Carolyn's face from coming suddenly and clearly before Lawrence as he spoke. That once it came, then vanished. It was several moments before Prudence lifted her head and looked about her.