The great headlight lit up the road for a hundred yards or more. Increasing speed a little, Johnson made straight for Corbière, where the road turned abruptly to the right. Leaving La Pulente behind them, they traveled rapidly until they reached the village of La Thiebaut, not far from the northern coast. And all the time they traveled they exchanged hardly a word.
The moon had now completely risen, and as they bore round to the right again to meet the road to Ville Bagot, the car suddenly slowed down. It stopped, and the engine became silent.
“Is anything the matter?” Cora inquired anxiously.
No sound of any sort was audible save, in the far distance, the sea washing up the beach.
“Nothing is the matter, my own darling,” Johnson murmured passionately, “but I felt that on a night like this——”
And so, in the solitude of that perfect night, they renewed their vows once more. Locked in her lover’s arms, Cora felt supremely happy. She felt his burning kisses on her lips and face and neck, on her eyes and on her hair.
“Darling,” she whispered back in an ecstacy at last. “I never knew before that any one could be so happy! Oh, how I hope you will never tire of me, that we shall live in this state of bliss right through to the end of our lives! I feel that until now my life has been so aimless. I have led such a butterfly existence. But it will be different in the future, my darlingest—oh, so completely different. I mean to do all in my power to make you the happiest man on earth, and then....”
Thus she talked, her words of love and passion flowing like a torrent from her lips. For the time all else but their great love was forgotten. Even her fondness for Yootha had passed completely from her mind.
When Johnson had driven her back to the house where she was still on a visit to her friends, and had returned to the Brees Hotel, he found several letters awaiting him which had arrived during the day.
One, he saw, was from Preston, and bore the Dieppe postmark. The other came from England, and the handwriting was Blenkiron’s.