loyalty. He is
strong and brave and beautiful. Virginia, why couldn't you love
him?"

"I could not love him," I replied, very low, "because my love was
not mine any more to give. It belongs to--some one else. Is his
name ancient? I don't know. It is his, and he ennobles it.
Cuthbert has youth, but youth is only promise. In the man I love I
find fulfilment. And he is loyal and brave and honest--I am afraid
he isn't beautiful, but I love him the better for his scars--"

After that I sat quite still, and I knew it depended on the next
half minute whether I went all the days of my life crowned and
glorious with happiness, or buried my shame and heartbreak under
the waters of the cove.

And then Dugald Shaw took me in his arms.

By and by he said huskily:

"Beloved, I had no right to ask you to share such a life as mine
must be--the life of a poor sailor."

At this I raised my head from its nestling-place and laughed.

"Ask me? Silly, I asked you! Of course you could have refused me,
but I depended on your not having the courage."

"And indeed that is a charge I'll not allow--that I am so little of
a man as to let my courting be done for me. No, no, it was my love
compelling you that made you speak the words you did--the love of a
selfish man who should have thought only of shielding you from the
hardships of such a wandering, homeless life as mine."

"Well, Heaven reward you for your selfishness," I said earnestly.
"I am thankful you were not so noble as to let me throw myself at
your head in vain. I have been doing it for ever so long, in fact,
but it is such a thick Scotch head that I dare say I made no
impression."

"Sweet imp! You'll pay for that--oh, Virginia, if I had only
something to offer you!"

"You can offer me something that I want very much, if you will, and
at no cost but to your strong right arm."

"It is an arm which is at your service for life--but what am I to
do with it now? And indeed I think it is very well employed at
this moment."

"But it must be employed much more strenuously," I remarked, moving
a little away, "if you are to get me what I want. Before you came,
I was meditating possible ways of getting it for myself. I wanted
it for a melancholy relic--a sort of mausoleum in which all my
hopes were buried. Now its purpose is quite different; it is to be
my bride's chest and hold the dowry which I shall bring to one
Dugald Shaw."

"You mean _the_ chest--the che