Then, quite suddenly, he collapsed upon the beach, burying his face in his hands. Presently Nadara crept close to his side. Her soft arms encircled his shoulders as she drew his cheek close to hers in an attempt to comfort him. "Is it so terrible," she asked, "to be left here alone with your Nadara?" "It is not that," he answered. "If you were mine I should not care so much, but you cannot be mine until we have reached civilization and you have been made mine in accordance with the laws and customs of civilized men. And now who knows when another ship may come--if ever another will come?" "But I am yours, Thandar," insisted the girl. "You are my man--you have told me that you love me, and I have replied that I would be your mate--who can give us to each other better than we can give ourselves?" He tried, as best he could, to explain to her the marriage customs and ceremonies of his own world, but she found it difficult to understand how it might be that a stranger whom neither might possibly ever have seen before could make it right for her to love her Thandar, or that it should be wrong for her to love him without the stranger's permission. To Thandar the future looked most black and hopeless. With his sudden determination to take Nadara back to his own people he had been overwhelmed with a mad yearning for home. He realized that his past apathy to the idea of returning to Boston had been due solely to recollection of Boston as he had known it--Boston without Nadara; but now that she was to have gone back with him Boston seemed the most desirable spot in the world. As he sat pondering the unfortunate happenings that had so delayed them that the yacht had sailed before they reached the shore, he also cast about for some plan to mitigate their disappointment. To live forever upon this savage island did not seem such an appalling thing as it had a year before--but then he had not realized his love for the wild young creature at his side. Ah, if she could but be made his wife then his exile here would be a happy rather than a doleful lot. What if he had been born here too? With the thought came a new idea that seemed to offer an avenue from his dilemma. Had he, too, been native born how would he have wed Nadara? Why through the ceremony of their own people, of course. And if men and women were thus wed here, living together in faithfulness throughout their lives, what more sacred a union could civilization offer? He sprang to his feet. "Come, Nadara!" he cried. "We shall return to your people, and there you shall become my wife." Nadara was puzzled, but she made no comment; content simply to leave the future to her lord and master; to do whatever would bring Thandar the greatest happiness. The return to the dwellings of Nadara's people occupied three never-to-be-forgotten days.