"But have you considered everything—your father—your friends—the uncertain future?"
"I've weighed everything. I knew that I loved you all along. I struggled with my pride, and I've mastered it. My father will forgive me when he knows that I am happy. As to what society thinks, I don't care."
"But are you willing to marry a poor man—are you willing to sacrifice all the luxuries you now enjoy for what may be a precarious existence with me?"
She looked up at him, her face radiant.
"I'd give up everything for you. Wealth does not bring happiness. I've found that out. I did not know what happiness was until I spent those blissful days with you on Hope Island. I'll welcome poverty if I am to share it with you. We can live in a cottage, on nothing a year, and I'll still be the happiest woman on earth."
He clasped her in his strong arms and fiercely kissed her unresisting lips. Here was a woman that any man might rejoice to call wife, and he had won her by love alone.
"It isn't as bad as all that, dearest," he said, with a smile.
"What do you mean?" she demanded, puzzled.
"There is no immediate danger of your having to live any differently."
Grace opened her eyes in amazement.