"The shadow was better," he said, but he did not know what he himself meant more than what she could mean. "It has come here," said Oona, "between you and me. You said you insulted Katie. I cannot think that it was your meaning to--insult me." "Insult--_you_!" his mind was so clear of that, and his own meaning in respect to the other so evident to him, that the dead quietude of his discouragement yielded to a momentary impatience. But how was he to make that clear? "No, I cannot think it. Whatever you meant, whether it was in levity, whether it was----I do not believe _that_." "Oona," he cried, waking to the desperation of the position, "will you give me up, after all we have said?" She shook her head sadly. "I will never now deny you what help I can give you, Lord Erradeen." He turned from her with a cry of bitterness. "Help without love is no help. Alms and pity will do nothing for me. It must be two--who are one." She answered him with a faint laugh which was more bitter still; but restrained the jest of pain which rose to her lips, something about three who could not be one. It was the impulse of keen anguish, but it would not have become a discussion that was as serious as life and death. "It is all a confusion," she said; "what to say or do I know not. It is such a thing--as could not have been foreseen. Some would think it made me free, but I do not feel that I can ever be free." She spoke without looking at him, gazing blankly out upon the landscape. "You said it was no smiling matter to you or me--to you and me. Perhaps," she interrupted herself as if a new light had come upon her, "that is the true meaning of what you say--two that are one; but it is not the usual creed. Two for misery----" "Oh not for misery, Oona! there is no misery for me where you are." "Or--any other," she said with a smile of unimaginable suffering, and ridicule, and indignation. He answered nothing. What could he say to defend himself? "If you could see into my heart," he said after a time, "you would understand. One who is in despair will clutch at anything. Can you imagine a man trying like a coward to escape the conflict, rather than facing it, and bringing the woman he loved into it?" "Yes," she said, "I can imagine that; but not in the man who is me." Then she moved away towards the beach, saying, "Hamish is waiting," with a sigh of weariness. "Oona," said Walter, "you will give me your hand again before we part?" "What does it matter if I give it or hold it back? It is yours whether I will or not. You should have told me before. I should have understood. Oh, I am ashamed, ashamed! to think of all I have said to you. How could you betray me first before you told me? In the same morning! It is more than a woman can bear!" she cried. Perhaps this outburst of passion relieved her, for she turned and held out her hand to him with a smile of pain which was heartrending. "It did not seem like this when we landed," she said.