“You have confessed your love, Claire!” he cried passionately. “It was not fair, perhaps, but I am past all that now--and you would not have confessed it in any other way. Glad! I was a stranger that night when you bought my life--and to-night you are glad, not because my life is now or ever could be worth such a sacrifice as yours, but because love has come to make you think so, sweetheart, and you care--you care for me.” “You know!” Her face was deathly white. “You know about--about that night?” she faltered. John Bruce had both her hands imprisoned now. “Yes; I know!” He laughed with a strange buoyancy; passion, triumph, were vibrant in his voice. “Did Crang not tell you how near to death he came to-day? I choked the truth out of him. Yes; I know! I know that it was to save my life you made that promise, that you sold everything you held dear in life for me--but it is over now!” He was beside her. He raised her two hands to draw her arms around his neck. She struggled back. “No, no!” she cried wildly. “Oh, you must not--you must not!” “Must not!” His voice rang his challenge to the world. The blood was pounding in mad abandon through his veins. His soul itself seemed aflame. Closer, closer he drew her to him. “Must not! There is only you and me--and our love--on all the earth!” But still she struggled---and then suddenly the tears came. “Oh, you are so strong--so strong,” she sobbed--and like some weary child finding rest her head dropped upon his shoulder and lay hidden there. “Claire! Claire!” It was his soul that spoke. He kissed the silken hair, and fondled it; and kissed the tear-wet eyes; and his cheek lay against hers; and she was in his arms, and he held her there tight-clasped so that she might never go again. And after a time she sobbed no more; and her hand, lifting, found his face and touched it gently, and creeping upward, brushed the hair back from his forehead--and then suddenly she clung to him with all her strength and drew his head down until her lips met his. And there was no world about them, and time was non-existent, and only they two lived. It was Claire at last who put his arms from her in a wistful, lingering way. “We have been mad for a little while,” she whispered. “Take me back home now, John--and--and you must never try to see me again.” And something seemed to grow chill and cold within John Bruce's heart. “Not that, Claire!” he cried out. “You do not mean that--that, after this, you will go on with--with tomorrow morning!” A brave little effort at a smile quivered on her lips. “We have had our hour, John,” she said; “yours and mine. It can never be taken from us, and I shall live in it all my life; but it is over now. Yes; I shall go through with it to-morrow morning. There is no other way. I must keep my promise.”