'Katie, my wife! are you here? I have had a frightful dream.'
'The dream is over now, Herbert.'
'Then it is not true that you are weary of me and longing for freedom?'
'No, Herbert. I have not grown weary. Never were you as precious as you are now! Darling! darling! say you forgive me, and love me still.' Her eyes are full of tears, and she sinks down beside him.
'What was it about Walter Reeves? He has been troubling my thoughts and driving me mad,' Sir Herbert repeats musingly.
'Walter Reeves is not in England now; he is gone to Italy with his wife. Liddy Delmere and he were married a fortnight ago.'
'Come nearer, my pet; come nearer me, Katie, my wife! Let me feel your kiss on my lips once more. Oh, I have been nearly heart-broken, nearly dead; but hope is returning. The strong arm of Mercy has brought me back to life again; and I feel as if there is happiness in store for us still.'
Laura Best comes in ere long, and finds Katie still kneeling beside the bed, her hands clasped in her husband's, and the light of fond affection glowing from her eyes as she looks tenderly into his. The bed is bestrewn with early violets, for Katie has flung down her flowers in her agitation, and the perfume is filling the room like a soft breath from the garden. Laura is not one whit calmer than Katie; she kisses her father, and weeps tears of joy, and feels he is given back to them from the very grasp of death. Marvellous to relate, all this flutter and excitement does not injure Sir Herbert or throw him back. Life has returned to him in too full strength for that. The delight of reunion, the joy of returned confidence in Katie, is like a draught of some invigorating potion to his heart, and from that hour he speedily recovers. All his doubts and distrust are over; all Katie's frivolity and worldliness have fled. They begin a new and more complete life together. True, the rest of the Admiral's days are doomed to be spent in retirement; as years pass by, he sees younger men stepping into the post he should have occupied, and gaining honours he once hoped to win.
True, he misses the full deep draught of power, the very taste of which had been sweet to him. Katie too has lost the brilliant colouring that once lit up her path; but neither of them repines at the change. Though Admiral Sir Herbert Dillworth's flag no longer flutters at the mast-head, and though his wife no longer leads the fashions, they are happy, with a higher, purer happiness than they ever knew in the days they spent at Government House.
THE END.