sometimes the glowing mystery of her new island home seemed to rush upon stella and make her a little faint.

“ferd, dear,” she said breathlessly, “who would ever have dreamed of our coming to a place like this?”

he eyed her searchingly.

“so strange, ferd—isn’t it? so almost unbelievable!”

“i wonder,” he mused, “if you would have come if you’d known what it was going to be like?”

“oh yes!” she laughed softly. “it’s so beautiful i almost want to cry sometimes. and the silence.... oh,” she exclaimed, “i tried so hard to imagine what our life was going to be like, but i never guessed a place like this!” her smile was quiet and engaging. “at first,” she went on, “i felt almost sure, from things you said, it was going to be some big city in europe or the east....”

they strolled together off to the rocky shore and stood gazing a long time across the tender resting sea. silence! the sun was dropping beyond the sheen of a little crescent beach, with the jungle climbing rich and dark, unstirred save by the echo of such voices as are never still, by day or night. slowly the sky grew splendid. clouds drifted and piled, painted with crimson and flushed with living gold.

stella sat by her husband in a rapture of romantic happiness. far down against the face of a rock gently slapped by the waxing tide, ran an odd white fissure, and crabs were busy scuttling all about it. the air was faintly scented with brine and seaweed as evening began to close in.

“oh, ferd....” she faltered delightedly. “it’s so still!”

and then, as the dark came on, she drew her husband into one of his moods of verbal grandeur, and sat entranced beside him while he multiplied, so easily, the splendours in store for them. this was but a beginning. they were to climb—the future was full of light.

“perhaps you’d like it if i got a consular place in cairo, later on?”

“oh, yes!”

“or—or an ambassador’s in rome...?”