with a glad look on her face, and with a joyful cry, she laid her
face on my bosom. And I--I was in Heaven. My happiness was beyond all
thought, all hope. It was joy unspeakable to feel her in my arms, and
to know that no cloud intervened.

"Ruth," I said after a while, "I have loved you all these long years,
loved you when all was darkness, and when there was no hope. When my
heart was full of hatred for all else, I loved you. Ruth, I have been
a sinful man, rejecting God's help, and breaking His laws, but I have
loved you."

She did not answer, save to sob as though her heart were too full for
utterance.

"Can you not speak some word, to me, Ruth?" I went on. "I know you
must have hated me when I left you more than a year ago, for in my
madness I thought that I had----"

"No, no, Roger, I never hated you," she said, quickly. "I loved you
all the time. I was mad, I think--and I did not know what I was doing,
and I thought I should have died when I knew you were gone."

"And now, Ruth?"

"Can you ask, Roger, after--after all you have--no, no I do not love
you because of what you have done, but because I cannot help it," and
she clung more closely to me.

After that I remembered little that was said, and what still remains
with me I cannot write down, for such joy as mine comes to man but
rarely, and cannot be told to others.

By and by the dinner bell rang, and Ruth and I entered the dining hall
together, where we found Mr. Inch, still stately and upright, but
growing very feeble.

He had heard of my arrival, and now gave me a hearty welcome. I learnt
afterwards that he had endeavoured to do all in his power to atone for
the past, and that no one could be more true and faithful than he,
after he had once shaken himself free from Wilfred's coils. And I
found, too, that he had constituted himself Ruth's protector, and
although she often had friends to cheer her in her loneliness, to the
end she regarded him as her adviser and comforter.

When Ruth and I were again alone in the library, she asked me to relate
all that had passed since I had left her on that terrible night.

Then I told her of the scene at my home on the night before, of
Wilfred's avowal of hatred, and then of what had happened in the
morning, and of Bill Tregargus's news. I described the journey to the
Hall, and my inquiries of the servant, and at the cottage where I had
been directed.

"He told me you were dead," she said hoarse