Her hands had rested passive in his, while she listened. Her face was turned from him, her eyes gazing out over the expanse of sea. Not a sail was in sight. One solitary gull flapped lonesome wings above the inhospitable waves. It seemed to her that her life was like that gull's--the world stretched before her, like a great waste of water, shoreless and desolate. She thought of the monotonous years awaiting her, homeless and alone as she was; of the ghastly emptiness of every pleasure, if she no more saw _his_ face, no more heard his voice. She shivered slightly, and his hands tightened their clasp upon her own. His touch thrilled her with a sweet inexplicable joy. She ceased to reason or think. Turning her white, beautiful, strangely calm face up to his, she answered solemnly and distinctly: "I will." And just then a star shot down from heaven, and sank into the dark and troubled waters of the sea below. CHAPTER XIV. ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN. Sitting in her bijou apartments, which consisted of a handsome "Flat" in a quiet and respectable portion of New York, Dolores seemed lost in pleasant reverie, when her little French maid, Lorette, appeared before her. "Everything is done but the dusting of this room, Madame," she said, in her native tongue. "Will Madame sit in the boudoir now--" "No, Lorette, you can go," Dolores answered, speaking French with as fine an accent as the Parisian _née_. "I will finish dusting, and as I am to dine out with Monsieur to-day, you need not return before to-morrow." Lorette, who came every morning to attend to the domestic duties of the little ménage, gladly took her congé, and Dolores flitted gayly about, dust-brush in hand, singing a merry snatch of opera, pausing at every sound, to listen for a familiar step, the perfect picture of a happy, expectant housewife making ready for the return of a loved one. Presently a quick footstep bounded up the stairs, and Dolores flew to the door before the latch-key could turn the lock, swung it wide open, and was closely clasped in the arms of Percy, who greeted her with a gay "_Bon matin, chère amie!_ and how have you been all these days?" Then, noticing the dust-brush on the floor beside her: "Why! how is this? has Lorette failed to make her appearance, that my lady-love has to perform her duties?" "Oh, no! I sent her away," smiled Dolores. "I knew we did not need her to-day--and" (shyly) "I did not want any third person to mar our greeting after your long absence." "Long!" Percy repeated, laughing, as he threw himself into an easy chair, and drew her down on an ottoman at his side. "Long? three days, _ma petite_? I am often absent from you as long as that." "You have never before been absent from the city so long as that, in this year of our new life," she said, as she caressed his hands, "without taking me with you, _mon ami_." "Well, but I often stay away from this charming nest, that length of time, without seeing you!"