“It will last forever, darling,” she interposed. “Forever and a day. We couldn’t be brought together like this, just to be parted again. Even Fate couldn’t be as cruel as that. Tell me why you didn’t know you loved me. Sometimes, when you used to talk about marrying--someone else,--I had to bite my lips to keep from calling to you--‘You _can’t_! It’s _I_ you love!’” “Why didn’t you, then? You saw me stumblin’ along in the dark. Why did you let me do it, when if you’d said the first word--?” “I should have said it some day. I know I should. Some day before it was too late. Oh, beloved, did you really think I was going to let you marry--her? Why even _she_ knew better.” Conover threw back his head and laughed long and loud. A laugh of absolute boyish happiness that rang out over the miles of fog like a challenge to Fate. “Oh, Lord!” he gurgled. “Gener’lly it gets me wild to be made a fool of. But this is the dandiest joke ever. The whole crowd was on, you say? Ev’rybody but me!” He grew grave and drew her to him once more. Not impetuously now, but with a gentle reverence. “Sweetheart,” he said, “I ain’t fit to kiss one of those soaked little mocc’sins of yours. I never worried much, before, ’bout such things;--but now--I kind of wish I’d done diff’rent in lots of things; so’s I could tell you I was reely worth your marryin’. But if you’ll help me, Dey, I’m goin’ to be everything you’d want. An’ one of these days I’ll make you proud of me.” “I’m prouder of you now, dear,--and I’ve always been prouder--than I could be of any other man alive,” she insisted. “Oh, the miracle of it!” Before he could stay her, or so much as guess her intent, she had slipped to her knees. Stooping to raise her, he saw her hands were clasped and her lips moving. Awed, he drew back a pace, and looked timidly upward into the Star Country. Then, shutting his eyes very tight he opened communication with Heaven for the first and last time in his life. “Thanks!” he muttered under his breath. A pause of mental hiatus,--a helpless groping for words in a wild universe of incoherent gratitude;--then once more a mumbled, shy “Thanks!”--and the prayer,--two words in all,--was ended. It is possible that longer, more eloquent orisons than his have penetrated less far beyond the frontier of the stars and less close to the ear of the Hearer and Answerer. Desirée had risen. Simply, half-shyly, like two little children, they kissed each other. “Now you must go to sleep,” he ordered, picking up the mackintosh and wrapping it closely about her. “To sleep!” she echoed. “After _this_? I don’t think I shall ever throw away happy hours again by sleeping through them. I couldn’t sleep now to save my life, even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. Please let me do the bossing just a _little_ longer, dear heart.”