She wondered why he asked forgiveness of her now, of all moments; and as she wondered the light dawned on her.

“I forgive you everything.  It was my fault.  I should have been there, and I wasn’t.”

Then he knew that after all she had understood.  Her love was in her eyes, in their light and in their darkness.  They gathered many flames of love into that tender tragic gaze, all pitying, half maternal.  Those eyes had never held for him the sad secrets of mortality.  Love in them looked upon things invisible, incorruptible; divining, even as it revealed, the ultimate mystery.  He saw that in her womanhood Nature was made holy, penetrated by the spirit and the fire of God.  He knelt down and laid his face against her shoulder, and her arm, caressing, held him there, as if it were she who sheltered and protected.

“Keith,” she whispered, “did you mean to marry me before you came this time, or after?”

“Before, oh before.”

“You thought—­that terrible thing had happened to me; you thought you would always have me dragging on you?  And yet you came?  It made no difference.  You came.”

“I came because I wanted to take care of you, Lucy.  I wanted nothing else.  That was all.”

Lucia’s understanding was complete.

“I knew you were like that,” said she; “I always knew it.”

She bent towards his hidden face and raised it to her own.