iance a new thought came to me. It
came with the memory of the emotion I had experienced during the
marriage service, and it thrilled me through and through.

"Father Dan?" I said, with a nervous cry, for my heart was fluttering
again.

"What is it, my child?"

It was hard to say what I was thinking about, but with a great effort I
stammered it out at last. I should be willing to leave the island with
my husband, and live under the same roof with him, and bear his name, so
that there might be no trouble, or scandal, and nobody except ourselves
might ever know that there was anything dividing us, any difference of
any kind between us, if he, on his part, would promise--firmly and
faithfully promise--that unless and until I came to love him he would
never claim my submission as a wife.

While I spoke I hardly dared to look at Father Dan, fearing he would
shake his head again, perhaps reprove me, perhaps laugh at me. But his
eyes which had been moist began to sparkle and smile.

"You mean that?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And you will go away with him on that condition?"

"Yes, yes."

"Then he must agree to it."

The pure-minded old priest saw no difficulties, no dangers, no risks of
breakdown in my girlish scheme. Already my husband had got all he had
bargained for. He had got my father's money in exchange for his noble
name, and if he wanted more, if he wanted the love of his wife, let him
earn it, let him win it.

"That's only right, only fair. It will be worth winning, too--better
worth winning than all your father's gold and silver ten times over. I
can tell him that much anyway."

He had risen to his feet in his excitement, the simple old priest with
his pure heart and his beautiful faith in me.

"And you, my child, you'll try to love him in return--promise you will."

A shiver ran through me when Father Dan said that--a sense of the
repugnance I felt for my husband almost stifled me.

"Promise me," said Father Dan, and though my face must have been
scarlet, I promised him.

"That's right. That alone will make him a better man. He may be all that
people say, but who can measure the miraculous influence of a good
woman?"

He was making for the door.

"I must go downstairs now and speak to your husband. But he'll agree.
Why shouldn't he? I know he's afraid of a public scandal, and if he
attempts to refuse I'll tell him that. . . . But no, that will be quite
unnecessary. Good-bye, my child! If I don't