ot, and it is very, very cruel. Yes, I am proud, very proud, but I
am proudest of all of my husband. Proud of him, proud for him--proud
that he should be the bravest and noblest gentleman in the world.
That is the worst of my pride, Michael--that I want to be proud of
him I love. But if that might not have been, and he had been the
lowliest man on earth, I could have shared his lot though it had been
never so poor and humble, so that I could have had him beside me
always."

As he listened to her passionate words there was a fluttering at his
throat. "Are you sure of that, Greeba?" he said.

"Only let me prove it to you," she cried, with the challenge of
beauty in her beautiful eyes.

"So you shall, Greeba," he said, "for we leave this house to-morrow."

"What?" she cried, rising to her feet.

"Yes," he said, "from to-morrow our condition will be different. So
get yourself ready to go away from here."

Then her courageous challenge sank away in an instant.

"Whatever do you mean?" she cried, in great terror.

"If you have married the President you shall live with the man," he
answered.

"Oh, Michael, Michael, what are you going to do?" she cried. "To
degrade yourself?"

"Even so," he said calmly.

"To punish me?" she cried, "To prove me? To test me?"

"If you can go through with it I shall be happy and content," he
answered.

"Are you then to be nothing in Iceland?" she said.

"And what of that?" he asked. "Think of what you have just been
saying."

"Then I have come into your life to wreck it," she cried. "Yes, I, I!
Michael," she added, more quietly, "I will go away. I would not bring
shame and humiliation upon you for all that the world can give. I
will leave you."

"That you never shall," said Michael Sunlocks. "We are man and wife
now, and as man and wife we shall live together."

"I tell you I will not stay," she cried.

"And I tell you," he replied, "that I am your husband, and you shall
give me a wife's obedience."

"Michael, dear Michael," she said, "it is for your own good that I
want to leave you, so that the great promise of your life may not be
wasted. It is I who am breaking in upon it. And I am nothing. Let me
go."

"It is too late, Greeba. As poor man and poor woman we must pass the
rest of our life together."

At that she burst into sobs again, blaming her brothers, and telling
of their mean mission, and how she resented it, and what revenge of
wicked slander they had wreake