"And she loves me," he says to himself, with the same wonder he had felt when that truth first flashed upon him. It flatters his manly vanity, cruelly hurt by Maud's treachery, to know that one true heart clings to him and loves him, though the woman he had loved had deceived him. Suddenly her lips part with an anxious question: "And you think it wise and prudent that I should go back to Maud leaving Uncle Langton here?" "Yes," he answers, and there is a silence which she does not break. "What do you think of the plan?" he asks. "I hardly know," the girl answers, with some embarrassment. "But you will do as I wish you--you will go back--in my care, Reine?" "If you think it for the best," she answers very low. "I do think so, otherwise I should not urge it. You need not be afraid to go with me, Reine. I will care for you with every tenderness--you are my wife, you know." And, stooping over her, he lays his lips full and softly upon her own. The shock of a great, new happiness tingles through the girl's sensitive frame. It is the first caress her unloving husband has ever offered her. With that impulsive kiss hope, which has almost died in her wounded heart, is born anew. "You are my wife," he repeats, gently. "I shall not lose sight of that fact again. I shall remember my duty better." She sighs a little. That word "duty" sounds so cold. "I will try to make you happier," he continues; "I fear you have not been so light-hearted as you used to be since _that_ night. Do you know those verses you were reading this evening sounded like a reproach to me?" She glances up, inquiringly. "The verses you shut your hands over when I came up to you," he explains. "The sad words ring in my head: "'And we say: "They are wrecked at dawning. The hopes of our lives, alas!"' "Did you think, my child, that they applied to your own case?" "I was tempted to think so--can you blame me?" she says, with a gentle reproach in her voice. "Do not fall into such despondent thoughts again," he answers, evasively. "You are too young for sorrow, Reine. Look on the bright side of the picture. I foresee that this play will end with my falling desperately in love with my own wife." "I hope so," she answers, with sudden, piteous earnestness, and a quiver of passionate sorrow in her voice. "So do I," he says, filled with sudden penitence. "I am sure it cannot be hard to learn to love so fair and noble a wife. You have saved me from my own sinful passions, Reine. I can never forget that." "And now I must go back," she says, with a bitter sigh of regret. "Uncle Langton will be lonely, and if--if I go to-morrow I have a great deal of packing to do first." They walk slowly back to the hotel through the murmurous silence of the summer night by the sea, with the strong, sweet smell of the brine in their faces. It is the first time they have been together without cold words from one or the other, the first time her husband has caressed her.