forget, love and love's counterfeit presentment, and
both were stamped indelibly upon the unspotted page of her maiden
memory.

She had seen a man whom she had hitherto liked, and whom she had
unconsciously respected for a certain dignity he seemed to have, degrade
himself--and for money's sake, as she rightly judged--to the playing of
a pitiful comedy. As the whole scene came back to her in all
distinctness, she traced the deception from first to last with amazing
certainty of comprehension, and she knew that San Miniato had wilfully
and intentionally laid a plot to work upon her feelings and to produce
the result he had obtained--a poor result enough, if he had known the
whole truth, yet one of which Beatrice was sorely ashamed. She had been
deceived into the expression of something which she had never felt--and
which, this morning, seemed further from her than ever before. It was
bitter to think that any man could say she had uttered those three
words "I love you," when there was less truth in them than in the
commonest, most pardonable social lie. He had planned the excursion,
knowing how beautiful things in nature affected her, knowing exactly at
what point the moon would rise, precisely at what hour that mysterious
light would gleam upon the water, knowing the magic of the place and
counting upon it to supplement his acting where it lacked reality. It
had been clever of him to think it out so carefully, to plan each detail
so thoughtfully, to behave so naturally until his opportunity was all
prepared and ready for him. But for one little mistake, one moment's
forgetfulness of tact, the impression might have remained and grown in
distinctness until it would have secured the imprint of a strong reality
at the beginning of a new volume in her life, to which she could always
look back in the hereafter as to something true and sweet to be thought
of. But his tact had failed him at the critical and supreme moment when
he had got what he wanted and had not known how to keep it, even for an
hour. And his mistake had been followed by a strange accident which had
revealed to Beatrice the very core of a poor human heart that was
beating itself to death, in true earnest, for her sake.

She had seen what many a woman longs for but may never look upon. She
had seen a man, brave, strong, simple and true, with the death mark of
his love for her upon his face. What matter if he were but an unlettered
sailor, scarcely knowing wha