“With me,” he said, “it was all future.  I’ve been counting the days.  I’ve not done that since I was at school!  Rachael, do you remember our talk the night after the Berry Stokes’ dinner?”

“Do I remember it?”

“Ah, my dear, if anyone had said that night that in six months we would be sitting here, and that you would have promised yourself to me!  You don’t know what my wife is going to mean to me, my dearest.  I can’t believe it yet!”

“It is going to mean everything in life to me,” she said seriously.  “I mean to be the best wife a man ever had.  If loving counts—­”

“Do you mean that?” he said eagerly.  “Say it—­do you mean that you love me?”

“Love you?” She stood up, pressing both hands over her heart as if there were real pain there.  For a few paces she walked away from him, and, as he followed her, she turned upon him the extraordinary beauty of her face transfigured with strong emotion.

“Greg,” she said quietly, “I didn’t know there was such love!  I’ve heard it called fire and pain and restlessness, but this thing is me!  It is burning in me like flame, it is consuming me.  To be with you”—­she caught his wrist with one hand, and with her free hand pointed out across the smiling ocean—­“to be with you and know you were mine, I could walk straight out into that water, and end it all, and be glad—­glad—­glad of the chance!  I loved you yesterday, but what is this to-day, when you have kissed me, and held me in your arms!” Her voice broke on something like a sob, but her eyes were smiling.  “All my life I’ve been asleep,” said Rachael.  “I’m awake now—­I’m awake now!  I begin to realize how helpless one is—­ to realize what I should have done if you hadn’t come—­”

“My darling,” Gregory said, his arms about her “what else—­feeling as we feel—­could I have done?”

Held in his embrace, she rested her hands upon his shoulders, and looked wistfully into his eyes.

“It is as we feel, isn’t it?” she said.  “I mean, it isn’t only me?  You—­you love me?”

Looking down at her dropped, velvety lashes, feeling the warm strong beat of her heart against his, holding close as he did all her glowing and fragrant beauty, Warren Gregory felt it the most exquisite moment of his life.  Her youth, her history, her wonderful poise and sureness so intoxicatingly linked with all a girl’s unexpected shyness and adorable uncertainties, all these combined to enthrall the man who had admired her for many years and loved her for more than one.

“Love you?” he asked, claiming again the lips she yielded with such a delicious widening of her eyes and quickening of breath.