But what she strove for was won; she knew it in the grasp of Wilfrid's hand when he led her to her carriage.

Her veil was down; behind it she was sobbing.
'Am I nothing more than a frivolous woman now ?' she said, leaning to him from the carriage.
Wilfrid could make no answer, and she was whirled away from him.
He went to her the next day, and asked her to be his wife.

Beatrice looked him in the face long and steadily.

Then she asked: 'Do you love me, Wilfrid ?' 'I love you.' Another word trembled on her tongue, but the temptation of her bliss was too great; the contained ardour of long years had its way, sweeping doubt and memory before it.
'For your sake I have done it all.

What do I care for a whole world's praise, compared with one word of recognition from you! You remember the morning when you told me of my faults, when we all but seemed to quarrel?
Ah! I have faults in abundance still, but have I not done one thing worth doing, done it thoroughly, as net everyone could?
I am not only a woman of the world, of society and fashion?
Do I not know how contemptible that is?
But only you could raise me above it.' He left her, in a bewildered state; she had excited, impassioned him; but how strange it all was after those other scenes of love! It seemed so of the earth; the words he had spoken rang over again in his ears, and stirred his blood to shame.