"You see—he came!" she said.
The old man saw the agony that blanched her cheeks, and answered, gently:
"Yes, daughter!" He struggled with himself, "And if you wish it, he may come again."
"But he won't come again. That is what makes it so hard; he will never come back."
She turned away, but not quickly enough to keep him from seeing that her eyes were wet. Wayne Wayland beheld what he would have given half his mighty fortune to prevent. He cried out angrily, but she anticipated his thought.
"No, no, you must never injure him again, for he was right and we were wrong. You see I—couldn't understand."
He left her staring into the night, and walked heavily below.
Emerson felt a great sense of relief and deliverance as he leaned against his oars. His heart sang to the murmur of the waters overside; for the first time in many months he felt young and free. How blind he had been and how narrow had been his escape from a life that could lead to but one result! The girl was sweet and good and wonderful in many ways, but—three years had altered him more than he had realized. He had begun to understand himself that very afternoon, when Cherry had told him her own unhappy secret. The shock of her disclosure had roused him from his dream, and once he began to see himself as he really was the rest had come quickly. He had been doubtful even when he went out to the yacht, but what happened there had destroyed the last trace of uncertainty. He knew that for him there was but one woman in all the world. It was no easy battle he had fought with himself. He had been reared to respect the conventions, and he knew that Cherry's life had not been all he could wish. But he fronted the issue squarely, and tried to throttle his inbred prejudice. Although he had felt the truth of Fraser's arguments and of Cherry's own words, he had still refused to yield until his love for the girl swept over him in all its power; then he made his choice.
The one thing he found most difficult to accept was her conduct with Hilliard. Those other charges against the girl were vague and shadowy, but this was concrete, and he was familiar with every miserable detail of it. It took all his courage to face it, but he swore savagely that if the conditions had been reversed, Cherry would not have faltered for an instant. Moreover, what she had done had been done for love of him; it was worse than vile to hesitate. Her past was her own, and all he could rightfully claim was her future. He shut his teeth and laid his course resolutely for her landing, striving to leave behind this one hideous memory, centring his mind upon the girl herself and shutting out her past. It was the bitterest fight he had ever waged; but when he reached the shore and tied his skiff, he was exalted by the knowledge that he had triumphed, that this painful episode was locked away with all the others.
Now that he had conquered, he was filled with a consuming eagerness. As he stole up through the shadows he heard her playing, and when he drew nearer he recognized the notes of that song that had banished his own black desolation on the night of their first meeting. He paused outside the open window and saw by the shaded lamplight that she was playing from memory, her fingers wandering over the keyboard without conscious effort. Then she took up the words, with all the throbbing tenderness that lives in a deep, contralto voice: