They sat down on a great log, washed silver white with long years of riding unguided through the seas, and all the wonderful world of blue sky and white sand might have been made for them. Rachael's hand lay in her lover's, her glorious eyes rarely left his face. Browned by his summer of travel, she found him better than ever to look upon; hungry after these waiting months, every tone of his voice held for her a separate delight. "Did you ever dream of happiness like this, Rachael?" "Never--never in my wildest flights. Not even in the past few months!" "What--didn't trust me?" "No, not that. But I've been rebuilding, body and soul. I didn't think of the future or the past. It was all present." "With me," he said, "it was all future. I've been counting the days. I've not done that since I was at school! Rachael, do you remember our talk the night after the Berry Stokes' dinner?" "Do I remember it?" "Ah, my dear, if anyone had said that night that in six months we would be sitting here, and that you would have promised yourself to me! You don't know what my wife is going to mean to me, my dearest. I can't believe it yet!" "It is going to mean everything in life to me," she said seriously. "I mean to be the best wife a man ever had. If loving counts--" "Do you mean that?" he said eagerly. "Say it--do you mean that you love me?" "Love you?" She stood up, pressing both hands over her heart as if there were real pain there. For a few paces she walked away from him, and, as he followed her, she turned upon him the extraordinary beauty of her face transfigured with strong emotion. "Greg," she said quietly, "I didn't know there was such love! I've heard it called fire and pain and restlessness, but this thing is ME! It is burning in me like flame, it is consuming me. To be with you"--she caught his wrist with one hand, and with her free hand pointed out across the smiling ocean--"to be with you and KNOW you were mine, I could walk straight out into that water, and end it all, and be glad--glad--glad of the chance! I loved you yesterday, but what is this to-day, when you have kissed me, and held me in your arms!" Her voice broke on something like a sob, but her eyes were smiling. "All my life I've been asleep," said Rachael. "I'm awake now--I'm awake now! I begin to realize how helpless one is--to realize what I should have done if you hadn't come--" "My darling," Gregory said, his arms about her "what else--feeling as we feel--could I have done?" Held in his embrace, she rested her hands upon his shoulders, and looked wistfully into his eyes. "It is as WE feel, isn't it?" she said. "I mean, it isn't only me? You--you love me?"