you both--"

"Very well then," said Chiltern brusquely, "I knew you would have to
know. And here," he added, "is an essential paper."

A few minutes later, in continuation of the same strange dream, Honora
was standing at Chiltern's side and the Reverend Mr. White was addressing
them: What he said--apart of it at least--seemed curiously familiar.
Chiltern put a ring on a finger of her ungloved hand. It was a supreme
moment in her destiny--this she knew. Between her responses she repeated
it to herself, but the mighty fact refused to be registered. And then,
suddenly, rang out the words:

"Those whom God hath joined together let no man Put asunder."

Those whom God hath joined together! Mr. White was congratulating her.
Other people were in the room--the minister's son, his wife, his
brother-in-law. She was in the street again, in the automobile, without
knowing how she got there, and Chiltern close beside her in the
limousine.

"My wife!" he whispered.

Was she? Could it be true, be lasting, be binding for ever and ever? Her
hand pressed his convulsively.

"Oh, Hugh!" she cried, "care for me--stay by me forever. Will you
promise?"

"I promise, Honora," he repeated. "Henceforth we are one."

Honora would have prolonged forever that honeymoon on summer seas. In
those blissful days she was content to sit by the hour watching him as,
bareheaded in the damp salt breeze, he sailed the great schooner and gave
sharp orders to the crew. He was a man who would be obeyed, and even his
flashes of temper pleased her. He was her master, too, and she gloried in
the fact. By the aid of the precious light within her, she studied him.

He loved her mightily, fiercely, but withal tenderly. With her alone he
was infinitely tender, and it seemed that something in him cried out for
battle against the rest of the world. He had his way, in port and out of
it. He brooked no opposition, and delighted to carry, against his
captain's advice, more canvas than was wise when it blew heavily. But the
yacht, like a woman, seemed a creature of his will; to know no fear when
she felt his guiding hand, even though the green water ran in the
scuppers.

And every day anew she scanned his face, even as he scanned the face of
the waters. What was she searching for? To have so much is to become
miserly, to fear lest a grain of the precious store be lost. On the
second day they had anchored, for an hour or two, between the sandy
headlands of a