Joyce brought Yvonne down to the back-parlour. The wine came out of the dirt-encrusted bottle like sunshine breaking through a cloud, and gladdened their hearts. And that was their marriage feast. Thus began the wedded life of these two. Years of struggle, poverty, and ostracism lay before them. They faced it all fearlessly. To each of them the long-denied love had come, at last, new and vivifying, changing the meaning of existence. Yet the final word of mutual revelation awaited the loosening touch. It came with tragic unexpectedness. One evening, not long after their marriage, Joyce, looking through the shop copy of “The Islington Gazette,” caught the head-line, “Salvation lassie commits suicide in New River.” A presentiment of what would follow flashed upon him. It was true. Annie Stevens had killed herself. “Good God!” he said involuntarily. Yvonne looked up from her sewing, and grew alarmed at the distress on his face. “What is it?” He was silent for a few moments. To tell her would involve long explanations. Yvonne knew of Annie Stevens in connection with his disgrace on the tour of “The Diamond Door,” but he had not spoken of after meetings. Yvonne put her work aside, in her quick way, and came and sat down on the footstool by his feet. As he bent and kissed her, she drew his arm round her neck, holding his hand. “What has pained you?” And then he told her the whole of the girl’s miserable story, her love for him, her degradation and downfall, and her wild idea of atonement. “And this is the end,” he said, showing her the paragraph. “Poor girl!” said Yvonne, deeply touched. “It was so pathetically impossible, was n’t it?” “Yes, dear,” Joyce answered. “I, too, know that.” “What?” “The tragic futility of such self-crucifixion. I have never told you the history of that night--why I gave you up--and the part this poor dead girl played in it.” In a low voice, he went over the old ground of degradation and his longing for atonement, and briefly laid before her the facts of his renunciation. “I know now,” he concluded, “that it could only add misery to misery. Nothing that a man or a woman alone can do can restore lost honour and self-reverence. No fasting or penance or sacrifice is of any use.” Yvonne drew her face away from him, so as to see him better. Pain was in her eyes. Her lips quivered. “Then--Stephen--dear--is it still the same with you about the prison--the old horror and shame?” “My dearest,” he said tenderly, “I said man alone was powerless. It is the touch of your lips that has wiped away all stain for ever.” They looked deep into each other’s eyes for a long, speechless moment And then Yvonne, like a foolish woman, fell a-sobbing on his knees. “Oh, thank God, my dear, thank God!” she said. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Derelicts, by William J. Locke