"My answer, Hester! I have waited long," he pleaded, looking at her with all his soul in his eyes. "I know now too well that I loved you before—before that other ever saw you."
Hester felt as if she knew it too. And she also knew that as the first man who had wooed and won her was false, this one was wholly true. Stretching out both her hands to him, she said:
"Yes, Mark, I will venture the black water again with you! Where you go I will go. My love and trust are wholly yours—and have been since—since that morning we stood together on the deck of the El Dorado."
Jarrold & Sons, Ltd., Printers, The Empire Press, Norwich.