Step by step they went over the ground of their mutual experiences since the time when they had parted: the picnic, and its tragic ending; the night which Graham had passed in the cabin with Ah Lam’s murderer,--for there could be no doubt it was he who had dropped Millicent’s handkerchief in the hut. Of the little journal Graham spoke sadly, gently, without anger, as if it were a thing which concerned neither of them. Then Millicent brokenly told the story which the written words had simply indicated. She told it with a sense of thankfulness that the weight of the secret rested no longer on her heart alone; that its pain was shared, and that at last her lover understood and saw her absolutely as she was. No reservation did she make, but bared to him the inmost chambers of her heart, sure of no misunderstanding, and upheld by a sympathy she had never before known. Then her confidence was returned, and Graham spoke to her of many things of which he had never spoken before; of the hopes and aspirations which had sometimes made his life glorious; of the quicksands and hidden rocks which had often made his way dangerous. A wonderful confession,--solemn as those first confessions made by men and women who at maturity join the Roman Catholic Church, and unflinchingly reveal to the confessor every temptation to which they have yielded in the course of their lives. To no mumbling, inattentive priest, with store of penances and absolutions in his pocket, was the confession made; in no stifling confessional, with throng of penitents outside, grudging every moment of delay. Each spoke to a tender human heart, that filled out the broken sentences, and echoed the deep sighs. The roof of their temple swayed in the light breeze, and the wild birds chanted the hymn of praise which consecrated it. As Millicent at last sat silent, not knowing whether her lover still spoke to her in words, or if that finer language of the spirit made his thoughts clear to her, came at once a strange consciousness that she was no longer a creature of this earth, with material senses and shape. The last words which she had spoken she remembered as one dimly recalls what has happened in another life. They were these:-- "Are you sorry for me?" There had been no answer in words or in looks; for the power of sight had been left behind with the outer case, now shaken off for the first time since life upon the earth had begun. She was a thing apart no longer; her existence had become merged in that of a stronger soul, to which she was an all-important part. Folded in this spirit-embrace time was not, nor past nor future; nothing but the perfect ecstasy of a union which eternity should consecrate. Floating on a celestial ether, the double soul mounted ever higher and higher. Was it toward eternal bliss that it was wafted? Was the long waiting at an end?