Iris vividly recalled the anguish he betrayed when this topic was inadvertently broached one day early in their acquaintance.  Now he was reciting his painful history with the air of a man far more concerned to be scrupulously accurate than aroused in his deepest passions by the memory of past wrongs.  What had happened in the interim to blunt these bygone sufferings?  Iris clasped her locket.  She thought she knew.

“The remainder may be told in a sentence,” he said.  “Of what avail were my frenzied statements against the definite proofs adduced by Lord Ventnor and his unfortunate ally?  Even her husband believed her and became my bitter foe.  Poor woman!  I have it in my heart to pity her.  Well, that is all.  I am here!”

“Can a man be ruined so easily?” murmured the girl, her exquisite tact leading her to avoid any direct expression of sympathy.

“It seems so.  But I have had my reward.  If ever I meet Mrs. Costobell again I will thank her for a great service.”

Iris suddenly became confused.  Her brow and neck tingled with a quick access of color.

“Why do you say that?” she asked; and Jenks, who was rising, either did not hear, or pretended not to hear, the tremor in her tone.

“Because you once told me you would never marry Lord Ventnor, and after what I have told you now I am quite sure you will not.”

“Ah, then you do trust me?” she almost whispered.

He forced back the words trembling for utterance.  He even strove weakly to assume an air of good-humored badinage.

“See how you have tempted me from work, Miss Deane,” he cried.  “We have gossiped here until the fire grew tired of our company.  To bed, please, at once.”

Iris caught him by the arm.

“I will pray tonight, and every night,” she said solemnly, “that your good name may be cleared in the eyes of all men as it is in mine.  And I am sure my prayer will be answered.”

She passed into her chamber, but her angelic influence remained.  In his very soul the man thanked God for the tribulation which brought this woman into his life.  He had traversed the wilderness to find an oasis of rare beauty.  What might lie beyond he neither knew nor cared.  Through the remainder of his existence, be it a day or many a year, he would be glorified by the knowledge that in one incomparable heart he reigned supreme, unchallenged, if only for the hour.  Fatigue, anxiety, bitter recollection and present danger, were overwhelmed and forgotten in the nearness, the intangible presence of Iris.  He looked up to the starry vault, and, yielding to the spell, he, too, prayed.

It was a beautiful night.  After a baking hot day the rocks were radiating their stored-up heat, but the pleasant south-westerly breeze that generally set in at sunset tempered the atmosphere and made sleep refreshing.  Jenks could not settle down to rest for a little while after Iris left him.  She did not bring forth her lamp, and, unwilling to disturb her, he picked up a resinous branch, lit it in the dying fire, and went into the cave.