And love and beauty find lodgment, by the same inexplicable route, in the same extremes of circumstances.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, finding many a matchless flower and many a ravishing fragrance in the wildest nooks of the world.
No sooner did Beverley land at the little wharf than, rushing to his quarters, he made a hasty exchange of water-soaked apparel for something more comfortable, and then bolted in the direction of Roussillon place.
Now Alice knew by the beating of her heart that he was coming.

In spite of all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast to her doubt and gloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course through her heart and break in splendid expectation from her eyes, as they looked through the little unglazed window toward the fort.

Nor had she long to wait.

He came up the narrow wet street, striding like a tall actor in the height of a melodrama, his powerful figure erect as an Indian's, and his face glowing with the joy of a genuine, impatient lover, who is proud of himself because of the image he bears in his heart.
When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could cross the veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned and bedecked herself; and so, without a trace of self-consciousness, she flashed upon him a full-blown flower--to his eyes the loveliest that ever opened under heaven.
Gaspard Roussillon, still overflowing with the importance of his part in the capture of Dejean, came puffing homeward just in time to see a man at the door holding Alice a-tiptoe in his arms.
"Ziff!" he cried, as he pushed open the little front gate of the yard, "en voila assez, vogue la galere!" The two forms disappeared within the house, as if moved by his roaring voice.
The letter to Beverley from his father was somewhat disturbing.