“My darling, my love! I knew it would come right in the end. The world I knew could not be so utterly forsaken by God but that everything should come right.”
“It is only one word I have given you,” she said.
“But what a word, Daireen! oh, the dearest and best word I ever heard breathed. God bless you, darling! God bless you!”
He did not make any attempt to kiss her: he only held her white hand tightly for an instant and looked into her pure, loving eyes.
“Now, my boy, good-bye,” said Colonel Gerald, laying his hand upon Standish's shoulder. “You will leave next week for the Castaways, and you will, I know, be careful to obey to the letter the directions of those in command until I come out to you. You must write a complete diary, as I told you—ah, there goes the gun! Daireen, here is Mr. Harwood waiting to shake hands with you.”
Mr. Harwood's hand was soon in the girl's.
“Good-bye, Miss Gerald. I trust you will sometimes give me a thought,” he said quietly.
“I shall never forget you, Mr. Harwood,” she said as she returned his grasp.
In another instant, as it seemed to the group on the shore, the good steamer passing out of the bay had dwindled down to that white piece of linen which a little hand waved over the stern.
“Mr. Harwood,” said Mrs. Crawford, as the special correspondent brought the major's wife to a wagonette,—“Mr. Harwood, I fear we have been terribly wrong. But indeed all the wrong was not mine. You, I know, will not blame me.”