She believed they had waited long enough. In her heart she had not a doubt that Serge was dead. But, with a desire to act with the most scrupulous fairness to his memory, she would give Providence this final chance of intervention, if that was to be. Her conscience was perfectly clean in the matter, and happiness was within her reach. Yet, with a womanly instinct against over-haste in such a case; with a womanly abnegation of herself where her own happiness depended on her own out-reaching for it; and, perhaps, unconsciously to some extent, as a final justification of herself should such ever be needed, she deliberately imposed the bar of her will upon him for those thirty days and watched their passage with very mingled feelings. As for Paul, he was happier than he had ever believed it possible for mortal man to be. So very happy was he that momentary fears of the reality of it all would flit across his heart. Could it be possible that Fate would trick them in those thirty days and dash the full cup from their thirsty lips? Yet surely they were justified in the step they were about to take. They had waited and hoped--yes, hoped, he for her sake, and she for Serge's--till hope had died of sheer starvation. Now that a new cup of happiness was held out to them should they not drink it? And yet, being no more than mortal man, he could not wholly still his fears. For when the cup is filled to running over, filled so full that heaven shines through the brimming rim and rings it with a crown of light, man, being at best but of limited faith, must, always and inevitably, fear lest the instability of all things earthly should spill it ere he drink. He believed they were justified, and in those final days of waiting he drank deep of her love, deep draughts of pure delight which never could be taken from him, come what might. His thoughts overleaped the days to the last one of all--and the one beyond it. And he thought deeply, for the circumstances in which they were placed were very extraordinary, and his whole desire was for the smoothing of Hope's path into this new sweet life. In the eyes of the law, and of the circumscribed world in which their lives were cast, they were already husband and wife. In the sight of God, and in the firm belief that Serge Palma was dead, they knew of no adequate reason why they should not become in reality that which they outwardly seemed to be. And again, in the sight of the law of the land, Hope was free to marry whom she would, since exile is legal death and death breaks all legal ties, though he knew she would never dream of marrying if the faintest hope remained to her of Serge's being alive. Since no priest was available, and no formal ceremony was possible, they must marry themselves; and if ever they reached a land of freedom they would, for the satisfaction of the proprieties, go through any such ceremony as the law of that land might require to legalise their union there.