What was life worth, after all, at best? How could people go on, year in, year out, under their tragic burdens and sordid pains? How many a weary year of sunless, monotonous suffering she would have to drag out, unless some merciful mischance befell her body and released her soul, she sighed, with a great yearning for the peace of not being--in the strong deep agony of youth, that has so many prospective years to endure in. And then, suddenly, at the turn leading to the convent cross, she came face to face with a figure hurrying with springing steps up the path by the deserted shrines, and the simultaneous surprised cry of "Ivor!" and "Agatha!" and the look flashed from eye to eye in one moment changed all the world and made everything clear to each, as they stood silent, each with both hands outstretched and clasping the other's. There was a look never seen before in Ivor's face, and a soft gladness unknown in Agatha's; both faces were in clear sunlight outlined upon a rock-wall overhung by the quaint, goblin-handed boughs of prickly pear. "Aggie," he cried, "dear, dearest Aggie, I was a beast yesterday. I _was_ a beast! You were right. All you said was true. I had no right to ask such things of you--no man has of any woman. Yet you _had_ saved me, you _had_ picked me out of the gutter all the time. No, it's no use saying anything. I saw the necklace and guessed. The beast sold it to Strozzi--and made upon it, trust him! It's in Strozzi's window. Aggie, how could you? The dear old necklace! I'm not worth it, my dear--no, not worth picking out of the mud. But I will be--at least, I won't be the cur I've been. And some day--some day, perhaps--at least, if you're not bound to the long artist-man--perhaps--oh! I shall never be fit to look to you--Don't talk of my mother--she'll be ready for anything after this. I wish I hadn't been such a brute to you. It's--it's as if I had been drunk all along--but not with wine; and now, now at last I've waked up, sober--quite sober, Aggie--darling." What she said, or if she said anything, she knew not and never knew; nor did he. There was one kiss, too spontaneous, reciprocal and inevitable to be thought of except as a matter of course, though the first since the old baby-kissing days; and then he was gone, racing for his train, that was perilously near the starting-time now. But he turned suddenly by the shrine where she had seen him on that first evening with the countess, for one last look. "Don't have the long painter-man," he cried; "he's too old; he really is; de Vieuxbois told me. And nobody's good enough for you, no, not by half." Then, with some of the old boyish gaiety lighting his face again, he vanished in the soft olive-shadows, racing for dear life.