"You couldn't forget me," she whispered, faint and trembling now. "You
don't mean to say I never could be near you again!" There was dismay in
her face and a sob in her voice.

"Oh, occasionally, but in a very formal way."

"I believe I should die," she cried, unable to restrain herself.

"You admit then that you want me for yourself only," he said.

"Yes, yes I do, Hugh! I want you every minute of my life!"

"Now you are beginning to know what love is," he breathed in her ear.
His eager arm stole slowly around her shoulders and, as she felt herself
being drawn close to him irresistibly, a sweet wonder overwhelmed her.
The awakening had come. With singing heart she lifted her hands to his
cheeks, bewitched by the new spell, holding his face off from her own
while she looked long and yearningly into his eyes. A soft flush crept
over her brow and down her neck, her eyes wavered and melted into
mirrors of love, her lips parted, but she could not speak. The clasp
tightened, his face came nearer, his words sounded like music in her
enchanted ears.

"Have I proved that you love me, darling?" "I never knew till now--I
never knew till now," she whispered.

Their lips met, their eyes closed, and the world was far, far away from
the little stretch of sand.

CHAPTER XXX

_WHERE THERE IS NO MINISTER_

Six savages lying on the sand far above them saw the strange scene down
near the splashing surf and looked blankly at each other. They had never
known their Izors to act in that manner, and their benighted minds
were troubled.

"Oh, Hugh, those men are looking at us," she protested, after the first
moments of joy.

"Let them look," he cried. "You should pity them, dear, for until a few
moments ago you were as much in the dark as to the meaning of love as
they are now. You were a perfect heathen."

"You are no longer the harlequin. You have become the wizard."

"But it isn't a pantomine," he said.

The shadows were falling and darkness was settling about them as they
passed between the giant rocks and into Velvet Valley, his arm around
her waist. This new emotion deprived them of the desire to talk. There
was a conscious flush in her cheeks, a queer restraint in her voice, a
curious timidity in her manner when they sat before the rude table in
the temple and partook of food that had never tasted so sweet before;
though neither could eat of it. Something had satisfied the grosser
appetite; something was tugging a