"Yes--that is real repentance," exclaimed Angus, interrupting her. "Common sense, even without Gospel light, tells one that it must be good. Christabel--may I call you Christabel?--just for this one isolated half-hour of life--here in Pentargon Bay? You shall be Miss Courtenay directly we leave this spot." "Call me what you please. I don't think it matters very much," faltered Christabel, blushing deeply. "But it makes all the difference to me. Christabel, I can't tell you how sweet it is to me just to pronounce your name. If--if--I could call you by that name always, or by a name still nearer and dearer. But you must judge. Give me half-an-hour--half-an-hour of heartfelt earnest truth on my side, and pitying patience on yours. Christabel, my past life has not been what a stainless Christian would call a good life. I have not been so bad as Tristan. I have violated no sacred charge--betrayed no kinsman. I suppose I have been hardly worse than the common run of young men, who have the means of leading an utterly useless life. I have lived selfishly, unthinkingly--caring for my own pleasure--with little thought of anything that was to come afterwards, either on earth or in heaven. But all that is past and done with. My wild oats are sown; I have had enough of youth and folly. When I came to Cornwall the other day I thought that I was on the threshold of middle age, and that middle age could give me nothing but a few years of pain and weariness. But--behold a miracle!--you have given me back my youth--youth and hope, and a desire for length of days, and a passionate yearning to lead a new, bright, stainless life. You have done all this, Christabel. I love you as I never thought it possible to love! I believe in you as I never before believed in woman--and yet--and yet----" He paused, with a long heartbroken sigh, clasped the girl's hand, which had been straying idly among the faded heather, and pressed it to his lips. "And yet I dare not ask you to be my wife. Shall I tell you why?" "Yes, tell me," she faltered, her cheeks deadly pale, her lowered eyelids heavy with tears. "I told you I was like Achilles, doomed to an early death. You remember with what pathetic tenderness Thetis speaks of her son, 'Few years are thine, and not a lengthened term; At once to early death and sorrows doomed Beyond the lot of man!'