And finally--"My own dear love, your packet from Madalena has at last reached us. What can I say to you save that my heart dances with rapture? I cannot sit still, but must needs run from place to place for very gladness. Mrs. Lambert reproves my lack of occupation. But she is mistaken. I am fully occupied in reading and re-reading your letter, and in thanking our Merciful Creator for this unhoped-for assurance of your safety. I have retired to the stone bench beneath the lime-trees. They are in blossom now, and their agreeable fragrance fills the air. Here I write to you, while the sun shines, and summer winds play lightly with the leaves. Do you remember our sitting here the evening you stole the new black ribbon from my embroidered bag with which to tie your hair? Dear love, now I am convinced that you will be permitted to return to me, and that we shall add yet other happy hours to those already treasured in our hearts. All will be well. Nay--what am I writing?--all is well already. But for my past anxiety and all my cruel fears, I could not have known the rapture of the present. My heart overflows. I would not have one unhappy creature breathe to-day. I have emptied my purse to a beggar; and have expended unpermitted dainties upon my cage-birds, and Dudley's horses and dogs. The servants smile upon me, rejoicing in my joy. Ah! my love, I am half ashamed to wear so gay a face. Dudley has withdrawn to the library. He is preoccupied and silent. Mrs. Lambert, for all her affection, regards me, I fear, with disapproval. But how can I feign indifference? You are safe. You will return to me. In six months I shall attain my majority, and then your brother Dudley can no longer, as my guardian, legally prohibit our marriage. Of that dear union, the consummation of all our prayers and hopes, I can scarcely dare trust myself to--" And here Laurence found himself forced to cease reading. The page was blotted, the writing obliterated, by rusty stains of the nature of which he could be in no doubt. The further record of Agnes Rivers's pure passion was smothered in blood. He folded the letters together, tied them up, put them back in the drawer, closed and locked the escritoire. Well, it must have been worth while to have been loved like that! Did women ever love so still, he wondered? He opened the tall French window, and once again went out, hatless, into the driving wet. XIV "Mr. Rivers regrets that he is unable to receive you to-night, sir."