But now things were altered. He felt angry and outraged at the thought that others knew her story, that she was pitied by them because of her great love for him. He longed to protect her, to suffer for her, to make her forget in his love and care the cruel lot which had been hers. He yearned for her sympathy, for her love, for that sense of peace which had come upon him as he sat by her side. The tide of love, which not once in a million years is at the full in two human hearts at once, rushed over him, sweeping away pride, reason, selfishness, ambition,--all, all routed and o’erset by that warm, delicious flood of emotion. He had fought against love so long, that at last the overthrow of will brought him an ecstasy of delight. He ran like one crazed through the cool, starry night, singing a love-song strange and tender, a song of submission, of hope and passionate love. Through the orchard he passed, startling the birds with his wonderful song. The prisoned love-mates heard it in their little nest, and folded their snowy wings closer together; the white roses heard it, and trembled at the sound; the six tall redwoods listened and whispered gravely together as he came among them and sank upon his knees at their feet, on the very spot where she had sat that day. That day! How could he have forgotten it, and all that it had meant to them both? What mist had risen again between them and hidden its memory from his sight? Before, it had been her want of faith in him, her fault, her only fault. Her atonement for that sin against her own soul, against him, had been bitter indeed. And afterwards what veil had blinded him to the great truth that they loved each other absolutely, that their two beings were each incomplete without the other? His pride! It had been his pride which had kept them so long apart! But now it was over. He would go to her, and tell her all. "Millicent, Millicent, I love you!" he cried aloud, his eager voice surging from his breast as if to relieve its weight of love. His cry was joyous, bounding, full of life and love and hope. The night wind bore back to his ears a tender, mournful cadence,--"love you." "Millicent, my love, I am coming; wait for me!" "Wait for me!" sighed the echo. And the young moon, pale and shrinking, dropped behind the high tree-tops from his sight; while the redwoods swayed tremulously, shaken by a sudden blast, and the echo again sighed its faint response,-- "Wait for me!" And the tide on the Pacific was at the flood. CHAPTER XX. "Malheureux! cet instant oû votre âme engourdie A secoué les fers qu’ elle traine ici-bas, Ce fugitif instant fut toute votre vie; Ne le regrettez pas."