"No, no, Caspar!" she said, tremulously.

"What was it all about, Alice? You know I never really understood it. Can't you make me understand? Was it that I was simply unbearable? too disagreeable to be put up with any longer."

"No, it was not that. I will speak the truth now, Caspar. I was jealous—I thought you cared for Rosalind Romaine."

"But you know now—surely—that that was not true?"

"Could you swear it?" she asked, suddenly and sharply, with a quick look into his face.

For a moment he was annoyed. Then his brow cleared, and he answered, very gravely—

"I can and will, if you like. But I thought—having trusted me so far—that you could trust me without an oath. Alice, I never loved any woman but one: and that one was yourself. Have you been as true to me as I have been to you?"

"I don't think I ever knew that I loved you until now," said Alice, laying her head with a deep sigh upon her husband's breast.

"Love is not enough, though it is a great deal: do you trust me?"

"Implicitly—now that I have looked at you again."