ingered by her side as though he could not part with her. To do Hugh
Fernely justice, he loved Beatrice for herself. Had she been a
penniless beggar he would have loved her just the same. The only dark
cloud in his sky was the knowledge that she was far above him. Still,
he argued to himself, the story she told of her father was an
impossible one. He did not believe that Ronald Earle would ever take
his daughters home--he did not quite know what to think, but he had no
fear on that score.

On the Wednesday evening they wandered down the cliff and sat upon the
shore, watching the sun set over the waters. Hugh took from his pocket
a little morocco case and placed it in Beatrice's hands. She opened
it, and cried out with admiration; there lay the most exquisite ring
she had ever seen, of pure pale gold, delicately and elaborately
chased, and set with three gleaming opals of rare beauty.

"Look at the motto inside," said Hugh.

She held the ring in her dainty white fingers, and read: "Until death
parts us."

"Oh, Hugh," she cried, "that word again? I dread it; why is it always
coming before me?"

He smiled at her fears, and asked her to let him place the ring upon
her finger.

"In two years," he said, "I shall place a plain gold ring on this
beautiful hand. Until then wear this, Beatrice, for my sake; it is our
betrothal ring."

"It shall not leave my finger," she said. "Mamma will not notice it,
and every one else will think she has given it to me herself."

"And now," said Hugh, "promise me once more, Beatrice, you will be true
to me--you will wait for me--that when I return you will let me claim
you as my own?"

"I do promise," she said, looking at the sun shining on the opals.

Beatrice never forgot the hour that followed. Proud, impetuous, and
imperial as she was, the young man's love and sorrow touched her as
nothing had ever done. The sunbeams died away in the west, the
glorious mass of tinted clouds fell like a veil over the evening sky,
the waves came in rapidly, breaking into sheets of white, creamy foam
in the gathering darkness, but still he could not leave her.

"I must go, Hugh," said Beatrice, at length; "mamma will miss me."

She never forgot the wistful eyes lingering upon her face.

"Once more, only once more," he said. "Beatrice, my love, when I
return you will be my wife?"

"Yes," she replied, startled alike by his grief and his love.

"Never be false to me," he continued.