And in her tender, timid "yes," and the pressure of the small hand on his arm he read the sweet, wifely love he was too generous and too chivalrous to ask his shy little bride to avow. CHAPTER LI. There was a very good hotel in the vicinity of Bay View House, and Guy Kenmore and his little bride went there to await the coming of the midnight train by which they proposed returning to Baltimore. He secured a comfortable private parlor, and sitting by the cheerful fire never hours of waiting passed more rapidly than these. With her lover-husband's arm drawn close and fondly round her graceful form, Irene listened to the story of that momentous night when she had so unwisely fled. She learned that the man she had both feared and despised was dead, that Mr. Stuart was her father, and that Lilia and her mother were both dead. "And it was my own precious mamma whom I refused to go and hear that night," she said. "Oh, if I had only known! But I was driven wild by my fears. In my trouble it seemed to me that there was no refuge on earth for me but in my mother's arms, and so I came back to America as fast as wind and tide could bring me!" "If you had known then that I loved you, Irene, would you have gone?" he asked her softly, while he gazed deep in the lovely sapphire blue eyes. The warm color surged into her cheeks at his earnest gaze, and she hesitated. "Tell me," he pleaded, and then she answered frankly: "No, I should not have gone. If you had claimed me then I should have come straight to your arms and told you all my doubts and fears. I could not have left you." "My proud little darling," he murmured, "we were both mistaken in holding aloof from each other; but, please God, we will make up the loss of those months of separation by long years of happiness spent together. Do you remember those sweet lines of Jean Ingelow, my darling? "It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye, All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay. Like a laverock in the lift, sing, oh, bonny bride! All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side. "What's the world, my love! what can it do? I am thine, and thou art mine, life is sweet and new; If the world have missed the mark let it stand by, For we two have gotten leave and once more we'll try." In his deep, sweet tones and the fond glances of his eyes, Irene read that she was beloved even as she had longed to be in those days in Italy, when she had believed him cold, careless, indifferent, and determined not to acknowledge the tie between them. Tears of happiness sparkled in her eyes, and with a low sob she hid her face on his breast. He held her close, and kissed her tears away, silently, thanking Heaven for the priceless gift of her innocent young heart. He told her the gay yachting party had returned to Richmond, sobered and saddened by the loss of Mrs. Stuart and Lilia.