“You must listen, Irene.  I love you—­I love you.”

She turned her face towards him; her lips trembled; her eyes were full of tears; there was a great look of wonder and tenderness in her face.

“Is it all true?”

She was in his arms.  He kissed her hair, her eyes—­ah me! it is the old story.  It had always been true.  He loved her from the first, at Fortress Monroe, every minute since.  And she—­well, perhaps she could learn to love him in time, if he was very good; yes, maybe she had loved him a little at Fortress Monroe.  How could he? what was there in her to attract him?  What a wonder it was that she could tolerate him!  What could she see in him?

So this impossible thing, this miracle, was explained?  No, indeed!  It had to be inquired into and explained over and over again, this absolutely new experience of two people loving each other.

She could speak now of herself, of her doubt that he could know his own heart and be stronger than the social traditions, and would not mind, as she thought he did at Newport—­just a little bit—­the opinions of other people.  I do not by any means imply that she said all this bluntly, or that she took at all the tone of apology; but she contrived, as a woman can without saying much, to let him see why she had distrusted, not the sincerity, but the perseverance of his love.  There would never be any more doubt now.  What a wonder it all is.

The two parted—­alas! alas! till supper-time!

I don’t know why scoffers make so light of these partings—­at the foot of the main stairs of the hotel gallery, just as Mrs. Farquhar was descending.  Irene’s face was radiant as she ran away from Mrs. Farquhar.

“Bless you, my children!  I see my warning was in vain, Mr. King.  It is a fatal walk.  It always was in our family.  Oh, youth! youth!” A shade of melancholy came over her charming face as she turned alone towards the spring.

X

LONG BRANCH, OCEAN GROVE

Mrs. Farquhar, Colonel Fane, and a great many of their first and second cousins were at the station the morning the Bensons and King and Forbes departed for the North.  The gallant colonel was foremost in his expressions of regret, and if he had been the proprietor of Virginia, and of the entire South added thereto, and had been anxious to close out the whole lot on favorable terms to the purchaser, he would not have exhibited greater solicitude as to the impression the visitors had received.  This solicitude was, however, wholly in his manner—­and it is the traditional-manner that has nearly passed away—­for underneath all this humility it was plain to be seen that the South had conferred a great favor, sir, upon these persons by a recognition of their merits.