to the rocks as with a
startled cry she sprang to her feet. For one agonising moment I gazed
into her startled eyes and saw her quivering lips.

[Illustration: "And then I saw her!"]

"Jack!" she cried, and we were in each other's arms.

I cannot write what we did or said during the first sweet minutes which
followed, for I do not know. I only know that we told each other the
most rapturous news which comes to mortal ears. Oh, the wonder of it!

We lived and we loved! This great earth with its blue-domed sky, its
fields, its flowers and its heaving seas became ours to enjoy "till
death us do part!"

There we sat amid the ruins where kings and queens had been born; where
they had lived, loved and died centuries agone. Their ashes mingled with
the dust from which they sprang; of their pomp and splendour naught
remained save the walls which crumbled over our heads; since their time
the world had been born anew, but the god of Love who came to them now
smiled on us, his heart as youthful, his figure as beautiful and his
ardour as strong as when he whispered sweet words into the ears of the
lovers who dwelt in Eden.

I had forgotten that we ever had quarrelled. As we sat there looking out
on the sea it seemed as if we had always known of each other's love.

"Sweetheart," I asked, "when did you first know that I loved you?"

"When I became angry at you," she replied.

"When you became angry at me?" I repeated, and then the thought of the
anguish through which I had passed recalled itself.

"Darling!" I exclaimed, "why did you treat me so? What had I done?
Sweetheart, you do not know how I have suffered!"

"But you must have known all the time that I loved you," she said, a
strange smile on her lips.

"How could I know?" I faltered.

"Could you not tell?" she asked, lifting her dancing eyes to mine. "Who
was the inspired author of lines which run like this: 'I have received
that glorious message! Grace Harding loves me! The message was
transmitted from the depths of her beautiful eyes! It has been confirmed
by the gentle pressure of her hand as it rested on my arm! It has been
echoed in the accents of her sweet voice! I have read it in the blush
which mantles her cheek as I draw near, and I know it from a thousand
little tokens which my heart understands and which my feeble words
cannot express. I am--'"

'"I am an ass,' is the amended and proper ending of that sentence," I
humbly said. "I beg of you, tell me