Sooner or later he would open his heart to her--and that would be the first change. Their relationship would of necessity become closer and warmer. She would welcome that. It would bring great happiness to them both. And then--later on--sometime--when all hope of rescue or escape had left them ... he would ask still more of her.... That was inevitable.... And in her heart, hiding behind a thinning cloud of doubt, which had, when first it came upon her, been tinged with dismay, she knew he would be right, and that in consenting, she would do no wrong, although it must run counter to all her normal views of right and wrong. She faced it all squarely and honestly,--Courtship properly ends in Marriage. If by this accident of their strange fate the regular marriage rites prescribed by the law of the land could not take place, they would have to content themselves without them. It was inevitable. Elemental views of right and wrong were indeed tap-rooted in her heart and safe from bruising. But she recognised that circumstances alter cases and that normal views were out of place here. And as to the law of the land--what country claimed this bank of sand she did not know. It was a No Man's Land, outside the pale of all laws save God's and Nature's. With no man she had ever met, except this man, could she have imagined herself considering possibilities such as these. But with him she would feel as safe and happy as if all the archbishops and bishops in the land had performed the ceremony. For, after all, it was only man's law and man's ceremony; and God's law and Nature's were mightier than these. With such thoughts in her--deep thoughts and long--she could wait quietly, and she veiled her feelings for him lest he should deem her of light mind and too easily to be won. Now and again, induced perhaps by some adverse humour of body or atmosphere, a plaguy little fear would leap at her heart and nibble it with sharp teeth,--could it be that he had ties in the old life of which he had never dared to hint,--some other woman--to whom he was bound by honour or by law? He had told her much, and yet not very much. Had he told her all? Did men ever tell all? He had told her much, but there was room in what he had not told for anything--for everything. But surely he had one time said that he had left no ties behind him,--that he was alone. If there should be anything of the kind it would explain his self-restraint, his quiet service, the looks he could not wholly check, the words he did not speak. That his heart had gone out to herself she could not mistake. But that was not incompatible with ties elsewhere that might keep them apart.