d. I have not angered you, have I?"

"No, no," she said with a sob, "only they made me believe you were
dead!"

"And did you care?--you who were so coy, and who, when you knew my heart
was hungering for you, would tell me nothing!"

I will not tell you what she said. Only God and myself heard her words,
and they are sacred to me. They have been my inspiration and my joy in
lonely hours, they have nerved my arm in time of peril and danger. They
opened the gates of heaven to me, and filled my life with sunshine. So
great is the power which God hath given to woman!

She nestled her head on my bosom as she told me what my heart had been
hungering to know, and for the time we forgot our surroundings--forgot
everything save our own happiness. The morning, which slowly dawned, we
did not heed, neither did we notice that the silvery light of the moon
died away. The cold was nothing to us, the bower in which we sat was
indeed a place of warmth and beauty and sunshine. No sadness was there,
for each welcomed the other as one come back from the gates of death. We
rejoiced in life and youth and love.

And yet we said nothing to each other with regard to our experiences in
the past, or our fears for the future. In those blissful minutes we only
lived in the present, regardless of all things, save that we were near
each other.

Thus it was that Naomi Penryn and I, Jasper Pennington, became
betrothed.

I think the realisation of our position came to each of us at the same
moment, for just as the thought of our danger flashed through my mind
Naomi tore herself from me.

"Jasper, Jasper," she cried, "you must not stay here longer. You are in
danger here, and if we are seen together--" She did not finish the
sentence, but looked eagerly, anxiously around.

Then I blamed myself for not acting differently, but only for a moment.
We had been only a few minutes together, and even if the direst calamity
befell us, I should rejoice that we had spent that blissful time
together, living only in the joy of love.

"I must go back to the house now," she said, hurriedly. "I shall soon be
missed, and searched for."

"No; do not go back," I said. "I can climb the wall and take you away.
Let us leave now."

"It would be no use now, Jasper," she said. "I should be followed and
brought back."

"Why?" I asked.

"There is not time to tell you now," she said; "if you were known to be
here you would never escape alive. Oh, Jasper, I am bes