But now she was safe. Now she looked back upon Hugh’s life, and saw it filled with innumerable deeds of devotion and loyalty. His brilliance in the world was a matter not of blind faith but of direct testimony. His heroism had not been potential but actually displayed. Twice she had known him to face death. Once to save his friend’s life. Once to save a woman’s honour. Of the latter she was convinced. Convinced also of his impeccability as regards the woman. On the part this creature had played in his life she was too proud to speculate. He did not love her. That was certain. It sufficed the hungering woman. The strong soul refused to seek further. Yes, she was safe; the foundations of her life laid on the living rock. The overwhelming happiness of it! She stood before him radiant. A black silk blouse, with frilled upstanding collar lightly caressing her throat, heightened the glow in her face. He had studied its infinite variety of expression, and knew it in all its phases, enthusiasm, anger, sorrow, gentleness. To-day it was a revelation. To only one man in her life can a woman reveal the full glory of her soul and sex. The last shreds of his compunction were swept away by a mighty wave of pride. “I would have gone through hell-fire to win you,” he said. She smiled, happily unconscious of his allusion, and replied in tender raillery. “You have only had to go through the hollow form of asking me. Was it so hard?” “I should never have asked you to marry me out of pity.” “I knew that,” she replied. “And now--are you sure that you will be happy?” “Happy?” he echoed. He laughed, walked across the room, back again, and ran his fingers through his hair. The happiness began to intoxicate him. He stopped before her and took both her hands. “Do you know what a man’s love is?” he cried. ***** He paced his room that night in a hot fever of joy, with pulses throbbing and nerves vibrating. Irene’s love was his at last, his for ever, to change life from an ill-weeded garden to glittering fields of an unimagined heaven beyond hyperbole of speech. To preserve the ineffable gift, he would take upon himself the burden of a hundred crimes. In this hour of rapture the burden of the one he had resolved to commit sat lightly on his shoulders. She ran no risk. The secret of the marriage was safe. It had lain buried in the Brighton Registrar’s office through all the lurid publicity of the trial. Minna would keep it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Anna Cassaba was bound body and soul to Minna. And then the crime was for the adored one’s greater happiness. It would lift from her the crushing weight of social loneliness. It would flood her life with the passion of a man’s worship. The vision of the full harmonious days to come rose up before him. He laughed aloud. There are times when a man feels strong enough to defy Fate. CHAPTER XX