"But since you found me faithful to your memory, Reine, you will forgive all the past, will you not, my darling?" he pleads. "Freely," she answers, with a smile that is all the brighter because it breaks through tears. "And now," he says, drawing her down to a seat beside him on the bench beneath the tree, "now, dear, you will tell me all your story. Where have you been through all the long months in which I mourned you as dead?" Resting in his arms she tells him the story of those long months of sorrow while she believed him dead, sobbing even now in the deep, sweet gladness that has come to her so suddenly, over the remembrance of her despair. "I knew no better until I reached the village yonder, seeking Maud," she concludes. "There I learned the whole truth, that you lived, and were again the betrothed of my cousin. I came here to have one secret, farewell look at you, my husband, to go away and leave you to your love and your happiness. But I heard all you said, and I could not give you up to Maud's selfish claim after that." "I thank God that I have found you again, my precious wife. We shall never be parted any more," he answers, earnestly. "You have not told me how you were saved that night after you sprang from the life-boat in which I last saw you," the young wife says after a little, lifting to his her shy, yet radiant eyes. "I floated on a plank a few hours, and was picked up by another life-boat, that is the whole story, simply told," he replies. "And you did not forget me when you thought me dead--you loved me after I was gone from you?" she says, with a note of gladness in her deep, sweet voice. "I loved you before I had lost you, darling. Did you not guess the truth, Reine?" he inquired, earnestly. "No," she answers, with blended wonder and delight in her beautiful, glowing face. "It is true, dear," he answers. "I loved you before I became aware of it myself. I was abominably jealous of the young lord who admired you in England. Yet at the time I was scarcely conscious of the meaning of my annoyance. My proposal to accompany you to America was an outgrowth of the longing to have you all to myself. And Reine, my darling wife, you remember that last night when the terrible trial of fire came to us, that night I had resolved that our strange alienation should exist no longer. I had determined to ask you, to pray you to come to your true resting-place upon my heart. But, my bride, my wife, there will be no more separation between us. You will share my home and my heart henceforth." "You used not to like me," she says, filled with a glad surprise. "Why did you love me at last?" The lover-husband looks down with a half-mischievous smile into the dark, questioning eyes. "Why did I love you," he says, lightly, yet tenderly. "Shall I tell you, little one? Well, then, I believe it was because you loved me." The sweet face, covered with blushes, droops from his gaze. He bends to kiss it, then continues, less teasingly: