She moved, so that she knelt beside him, and her small brown hands were palm downward on his breast; her eyes shone like stars with the light of a perfect love glowing in them; her sweet lips quivered, as, with all a young girl's abandonment to her first passion, she breathed: "Do you think I care whether you are poor or rich? I love you! Do you think I care whether you are handsome or ugly? It is you I love. Do you think I care where I go, so that you take me with you? I could not live without you. I would rather wander through the world, in rags, and starving, cold, and hungry, than--than marry a king and live in a palace! I only want you, you, you! I have wanted you since--since that first day--do you remember? I--turn your eyes away, don't look at me; I am so ashamed!--I came down to you that night--the first night! You were calling for water, and I--I raised you on my arm, and--and oh! I was so happy! I did not know, guess, why; but I know now. I--I must have loved you even then!" She hid her eyes on his arm, and he kissed her hair reverently. "And every day I--I grew to love you more. I was only happy when I was with you. I wondered why. But I know now! And you were always so kind and gentle with me; so unlike any other man I had met--the vicar, Doctor Spence--and I used to like to listen to you; and--and when you touched me something ran through me, something filled me with gladness." She paused for breath, her eyes fixed on his face, as if she were not seeing him, but the past, and her own self moving and being in that past. "And then you went, and all the happiness, all the gladness, seemed to go, and--bend lower--I--I can only whisper it--the night you went I flung myself on the bed and--and cried." "My Nell, my dearest!" was all he could say. "I cried because it seemed to me that my life had come to an end; that never, so long as I should live, should I know one moment of happiness again. It was as if all the light had gone out of the sky, as if the sun had turned cold--ah! you don't know!" "Do I not, dearest?" "And then, when I saw you to-day, all the light and warmth came rushing back, and I knew that it was you who were my light, my sun, and that without you I was not living, but only a shadow and a mockery of life." Her hands fell from his breast, her head sank upon his knees, she sobbed in the abandonment of her passion. And the man was awed by it, and almost as white as herself. He gathered her in his strong arms and murmured passionate words of love and gratitude and devotion. "Nell, Nell, my Nell! God make me more worthy of your love!" he said brokenly, hoarsely. She raised her head from his knees and offered him--of her own free will--her sweet lips, and then clung to him with a half-tearful, maidenly shame. "Let me go!" she said. * * * * * The light that never was on earth or sky beamed on the _Annie Laurie_ as it skimmed toward the jetty.