END OF PART II
PART III
CHAPTER I
“FOR HE HAD GREAT POSSESSIONS”
Thus, gradually, belief was restored to Stuart, and faith in the vision, and the vision itself. And then came a quickening pride in the thought of Peter, battling through to the same issue; Peter, erect and balanced, with that half-smile of scorn upon her lips; more his mate than ever now, since with equal strength and without bitterness, they could each stand alone, walk alone, guarding strange memories.
Twenty-four hours of squally weather tempted him to put out to sea in his racing yacht. Blown half across the Channel, he met with terrific resistance beating back through a flying scud of wind and spray, all reefs in, and rail deep under water. Nor did he for one second think of relinquishing his hold upon life, nor of adjuring the ocean, in approved fashion, to let him seek oblivion in its coolness.
Reaching home, he slept, and did not dream. Slept sound and hard. The next night he again saw the lovers wandering amid that renewed tranquillity which succeeds tempest. Though the sight of them still stirred him to pain, the taint of envy had departed; and he smiled, as, passing, he caught the inevitable question whispered:
“And when did you first begin to love me, Letty?”
Stuart reflected with amused contempt that the answer could not fail to be: “I think I must have loved you always, dear heart....” He wondered what would happen if he followed the impulse to warn them whither they were straying in their blindness, tell them the use of the shears—then laughed, imagining the reception his harangue would receive: the male muttering: “Some crazy loon!” and drawing closer the girl, who would murmur, her lips against his neck: “He doesn’t know, does he, dearest?”