Lady Warrington, yawning over a society novel, fell asleep in the drawing-room. Her son was at his club. Laurie whispered softly: “Come out into the moonlight and see the great white moonflowers unfolding in the dew, and holding their broad, perfumed saucers to the night.” Rosalind went out to the arbor, a moonflower herself in her white gown and dainty loveliness. She sat down by his side on the rustic bench, and they both were trembling with emotion. “I have wanted to speak to you alone very much, Rosalind,” he began, adding: “You know that I am free, that the wife who was never aught but wife in name has severed my bonds and set me free?” She bowed her head, and he continued: “You have wondered at that strange alienation. I will tell you how it came about. From the very first day she was nervous and hysterical, her dreams were wild. She fancied herself your murderer, and rehearsed the gruesome details in her sleep.” She shuddered away from him, her face as white as the moonflowers unfolding to the dew overhead; a low moan escaped her lips. “Do not be frightened, Rosalind. I am not going to ask you to betray confidence; I only wish you to know that in her sleep she found your ring!” “My ring!” her sweet voice trembled with joy and pride. She looked up at him with shy expectancy, wondering, hoping. CHAPTER XLIV. THE NIGHTINGALE’S STORY. Laurie held up the beautiful diamond in the moonlight, and she half-shuddered, remembering the doom it had brought on her that summer night nearly two years ago now. “You will not wish to wear it again; it frightens you,” he said questioningly. She faltered: “Might she not be angry?” “Nonsense! She does not care any more now!” reassuringly. Which showed how little he understood a woman’s heart. Far away in America, at that very moment, Lelia was saying to her mother: “I wish now I had thrown the diamond in the well! It maddens me to think of another girl wearing it.” “Forget it all,” Mrs. Ritchie answered tenderly. So when Laurie reassured her, Rosalind held out her white hand for the ring. He kissed the little hand with eager lips, then slipped the ring back again. “For ever and aye,” he said solemnly, and for a moment both were very still, listening to a nightingale that came to sing to the moonflowers in the dew. The dark, soft eyes looked up at him shyly, and he murmured: “What is it, dear?” “The wish?” “Oh, yes, I remember. But, Rosalind, perhaps it will frighten you to hear it spoken aloud--the wish I had in my heart that evening.” “It will not frighten me, and I am so curious. You cannot guess how I have wondered over it and wept, fearing I should never know.” “Ah, little Mother Eve, you will be angry.” “No, no!” “Then hear me, sweet! I had the same wish then that I have now. I had in my mind the same story that nightingale is warbling to the flowers; the old, old story of love. I wished that some day you would be my wife.”