"Anything more?"
"Yes,—he said you were shortly to marry his son."
"That is what he wished,—and that is why I am here."
"Thank God! Then I may tell you, Margaret. I had been building castles and you were mistress of them all and of my whole heart. When Mr. Pixley knocked them into dust I came here to fight it out by myself, and a black time I had. Then God, in His goodness, put it into your heart to come too. Will you marry me, Margaret?"
"Yes, Jock."
And there, in the lull of the gale, in the lee of the lonely house on Brecqhou, they plighted their troth with no more need of feeble words, for their hearts had gone out to one another.
And all along the gaunt black rocks the great waves, which a moment before had been growling in dull agony, roared a mighty chorus of delight, and rolled it up the sloping seams of Longue Pointe, and flashed it on in thunderous bursts of foam from Bec-du-Nez to L'Etac.
And Miss Henrietta Penny, awakening about this time, and finding herself alone, laughed happily to herself, and sighed just once, and said from her heart, "God bless them!"—and did not go to sleep again, though to look at her you would never have known it, save for the fact that she no longer purred in her sleep,—for the woman has yet to be born who ever pleaded guilty to actual snoring.
XIX
Graeme slept that night just as much as might have been expected under the circumstances, and that was not one wink. Nevertheless, when morning came, he felt as strong and joyous as a young god. New life had come to him in the night, and he felt equal to the conquering of worlds. For love is life, and the strength and the joy of it.