l separate us: We never have known life, either of us,
until now. I, missing you, have run after the false gods. And you--I say
it with truth-needed me. We will go to live at Grenoble, as my father
and mother lived. We will take up their duties there. And if it seems
possible, I will go into public life. When I return, I shall find
you--waiting for me--in the garden."

So real had the mirage become, that Honora did not answer. The desert
and its journey fell away. Could such a thing, after all, be possible?
Did fate deal twice to those whom she had made novices? The mirage,
indeed, suddenly became reality--a mirage only because she had
proclaimed it such. She had beheld in it, as he spoke, a Grenoble which
was paradise regained. And why should paradise regained be a paradox?
Why paradise regained? Paradise gained. She had never known it, until
he had flung wide the gates. She had sought for it, and never found it
until now, and her senses doubted it. It was a paradise of love, to
be sure; but one, too, of duty. Duty made it real. Work was there, and
fulfilment of the purpose of life itself. And if his days hitherto had
been useless, hers had in truth been barren.

It was only of late, after a life-long groping, that she had discovered
their barrenness. The right to happiness! Could she begin anew, and
found it upon a rock? And was he the rock?

The question startled her, and she drew away from him first her hand,
and then she turned her body, staring at him with widened eyes. He
did not resist the movement; nor could he, being male, divine what was
passing within her, though he watched her anxiously. She had no thought
of the first days,--but afterwards. For at such times it is the woman
who scans the veil of the future. How long would that beacon burn which
flamed now in such prodigal waste? Would not the very springs of it dry
up? She looked at him, and she saw the Viking. But the Viking had
fled from the world, and they--they would be going into it. Could love
prevail against its dangers and pitfalls and--duties? Love was the word
that rang out, as one calling through the garden, and her thoughts ran
molten. Let love overflow--she gloried in the waste! And let the lean
years come,--she defied them to-day.

"Oh, Hugh!" she faltered.

"My dearest!" he cried, and would have seized her in his arms again
but for a look of supplication. That he had in him this innate and
unsuspected chivalry filled her with an exquisi