Peter, when I saw you last night facing that swordsman with but a staff, and thought that you must die, oh! then I knew all the truth, and my heart was nigh to bursting, as, had you died, it would have burst.

But now it is all done with, and we know each other's secret, and nothing shall ever part us more till death comes to one or both." Thus Margaret spoke, while he drank in her words as desert sands, parched by years of drought, drink in the rain--and watched her face, out of which all mischief and mockery had departed, leaving it that of a most beauteous and most earnest woman, to whom a sense of the weight of life, with its mingled joys and sorrows, had come home suddenly.

When she had finished, this silent man, to whom even his great happiness brought few words, said only: "God has been very good to us.

Let us thank God." So they did, then, even there, seated side by side upon the bench, because the grass was too wet for them to kneel on, praying in their simple, childlike faith that the Power which had brought them together, and taught them to love each other, would bless them in that love and protect them from all harms, enemies, and evils through many a long year of life.
Their prayer finished, they sat together on the seat, now talking, and now silent in their joy, while all too fast the time wore on.

At length--it was after one of these spells of blissful silence--a change came over them, such a change as falls upon some peaceful scene when, unexpected and complete, a black stormcloud sweeps across the sun, and, in place of its warm light, pours down gloom full of the promise of tempest and of rain.