The only dark cloud in his sky was the knowledge that she was far above him.

Still, he argued to himself, the story she told of her father was an impossible one.

He did not believe that Ronald Earle would ever take his daughters home--he did not quite know what to think, but he had no fear on that score.
On the Wednesday evening they wandered down the cliff and sat upon the shore, watching the sun set over the waters.

Hugh took from his pocket a little morocco case and placed it in Beatrice's hands.

She opened it, and cried out with admiration; there lay the most exquisite ring she had ever seen, of pure pale gold, delicately and elaborately chased, and set with three gleaming opals of rare beauty.
"Look at the motto inside," said Hugh.
She held the ring in her dainty white fingers, and read: "Until death parts us." "Oh, Hugh," she cried, "that word again?
I dread it; why is it always coming before me ?" He smiled at her fears, and asked her to let him place the ring upon her finger.
"In two years," he said, "I shall place a plain gold ring on this beautiful hand.