“You stood there looking down at the sea as if you were in a dream,” she whispered; “and all the time I was crying inside of me for you to come to me.  And presently, I suppose, you will go away.”

“No,” he said.  “This time I have come for good.”

“I knew you would, sometime,” she murmured.  “At least, I hoped you would.  I wanted you so badly.”

“But because one wants a thing badly it doesn’t always follow that one gets it.”

MacRae was thinking of his father when he spoke.

“I know that,” Betty said.  “But I knew that you wanted me, you see.  And I had faith that you would brush away the cobwebs somehow.  I’ve been awfully angry at you sometimes.  It’s horrible to feel that there is an imaginary wall between you and some one you care for.”

“There is no wall now,” MacRae said.

“Was there ever one, really?”

“There seemed to be.”

“And now there is none?”

“None at all.”

“Sure?” she murmured.

“Honest Injun,” MacRae smiled.  “I went to see your father to-day about a simple matter of business.  And I found—­I learned—­oh, well, it doesn’t matter.  I buried the hatchet.  We are going to be married and live happily ever after.”

“Well,” Betty said judiciously, “we shall have as good a chance as any one, I think.  Look at Norman and Dolly.  I positively trembled for them—­after Norman getting into that mess over in England.  He never exactly shone as a real he-man, that brother of mine, you know.  But they are really happy, Jack.  They make me envious.”

“I think you’re a little hard on that brother of yours,” MacRae said.  He was suddenly filled with a great charity toward all mankind.  “He never had much of a chance, from all I can gather.”

He went on to tell her what Norman had told him that afternoon on the hill above the Cove.  But Betty interrupted.

“Oh, I know that now,” she declared.  “Daddy told me just recently.  Daddy knew what Norman was doing over there.  In fact, he showed me a letter from some British military authority praising Norman for the work he did.  But Daddy kept mum when Norman came home and those nasty rumors began to go around.  He thought it better for Norman to take his medicine.  He was afraid mother would smother him with money and insist on his being a proper lounge lizard again, and so he would gradually drop back into his old uselessness.  Daddy was simply tickled stiff when Norman showed his teeth—­when he cut loose from everything and married Dolly, and all that.  He’s a very wise old man, that father of mine, Jack.  He hasn’t ever got much real satisfaction in his life.  He has been more content this last month or so than I can ever remember him.  We have always had loads of money, and while it’s nice to have plenty, I don’t think it did him any good.  My whole life has been lived in an atmosphere of domestic incompatibility.  I think I should make a very capable wife—­I have had so many object lessons in how not to be.  My mother wasn’t a success either as a wife or a mother.  It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s really true, Jack.  Mamma’s a very well-bred, distinguished-looking person with exquisite taste in dress and dinner parties, and that’s about the only kind thing I can say for her.  Do you really love me, Jack?  Heaps and heaps?”