“After we have been divorced at her petition?” He pointed to the window as he said it.  “Look at the sea.  If I was drowning out yonder, I might as well ask the sea to forgive me.”

He produced no effect on her.  She ignored the Divorce; her passionate remorse asserted itself as obstinately as ever.  “Mrs. Linley is a good woman,” she insisted; “Mrs. Linley is a Christian woman.”

“I have lost all claim on her—­even the claim to remember her virtues,” he answered, sternly.  “No more of it, Sydney!  I am sorry I have disappointed you; I am sorry if you are weary of me.”

At those last words her manner changed.  “Wound me as cruelly as you please,” she said, humbly.  “I will try to bear it.”

“I wouldn’t wound you for the world!  Why do you persist in distressing me?  Why do you feel suspicion of me which I have not deserved?” He stopped, and held out his hand.  “Don’t let us quarrel, Sydney.  Which will you do?  Keep your bad opinion of me, or give me a fair trial?”

She loved him dearly; she was so young—­and the young are so ready to hope!  Still, she struggled against herself.  “Herbert! is it your pity for me that is speaking now?”

He left her in despair.  “It’s useless!” he said, sadly.  “Nothing will conquer your inveterate distrust.”

She followed him.  With a faint cry of entreaty she made him turn to her, and held him in a trembling embrace, and rested her head on his bosom.  “Forgive me—­be patient with me—­love me.”  That was all she could say.

He attempted to calm her agitation by speaking lightly.  “At last, Sydney, we are friends again!” he said.

Friends?  All the woman in her recoiled from that insufficient word.  “Are we Lovers?” she whispered.

“Yes!”

With that assurance her anxious heart was content.  She smiled; she looked out at the sea with a new appreciation of the view.  “The air of this place will do me good now,” she said.  “Are my eyes red, Herbert?  Let me go and bathe them, and make myself fit to be seen.”

She rang the bell.  The chambermaid answered it, ready to show the other rooms.  She turned round at the door.

“Let’s try to make our sitting-room look like home,” she suggested.  “How dismal, how dreadfully like a thing that doesn’t belong to us, that empty table looks!  Put some of your books and my keepsakes on it, while I am away.  I’ll bring my work with me when I come back.”

He had left his travelers’ bag on a chair, when he first came in.  Now that he was alone, and under no restraint, he sighed as he unlocked the bag.  “Home?” he repeated; “we have no home.  Poor girl! poor unhappy girl!  Let me help her to deceive herself.”