And with that Bertha was obliged to be content. She hoped great things from the concessions he had already made. Now that Irene was dead, and Elaine gone, she would have no rivals, and surely, surely her beauty, her fascination, her tenderness for him must win him even against his will. She brought the whole battery of her charms and graces to bear upon him, but was obliged to confess to herself that she had never seen him so sad, so grave, so pale and so _distrait_. "It cannot be that he is sorry over that child's death. He ought to be glad," she thought to herself. "It must be that he assumes this gravity in deference to my affliction." Yet she was troubled and chagrined when he left her so indifferently and went down to the shore. She watched him from her window, standing quietly, with folded arms, a tall, dark shape, outlined against the brightness of the summer eve. "Of what is he thinking?" she asked her heart, uneasily. It would have seemed strange to her if she had known. It even seemed strange to himself. He was standing there gazing with dark, heavy eyes at the rolling waves, much as if he had been gazing on a grave. He was recalling to mind the winsome, changeful, perfect beauty, the fire, the soul, the passion of the girl he had so strangely wedded, the girl who had recklessly flung herself into the deep, relentless waves, leaving him only the memory of the few, brief hours in which she had flashed before him in the extremes of joy and despair---- one moment a beautiful, spirited, happy child, the next a passionate, despairing, crushed and broken-hearted woman! "Poor little Irene," he said to himself. "If she had lived, who knows"--then a sigh, deeper than he knew, finished the regretful words. CHAPTER XVI. He stood there a long, long time, listening to the beat of the waves, and thinking of Irene and her mother. Bertha grew tired of watching him and stole away to try the effect of a new mourning bonnet that had just been sent home from the milliner. Guy had forgotten her. He was wrapped in other thoughts. New feelings had come to him since that night, when, indolent, _blase_, careless, he had come face to face with his fate. He was haunted by a voice, a face. Some sad words came to his mind: "How could I tell I should love thee to-day, Whom that day I held not dear? How could I know I should love thee away When I loved thee not anear?" "Oh, that word Regret! There have been nights and morns when we have sighed: 'Let us alone, Regret!'" He turned away at last warned by the darkening twilight that fell like a pall over his lost bride's "vast and wandering grave." "I must bid adieu to Mrs. Brooke and Bertha and return home to-night," was the thought in his mind. Mrs. Brooke was in the parlor alone, Bertha being still absorbed in the new bonnet. A sudden impulse came to Guy Kenmore.