When in sight of Rhoda's lodgings they parted without hand-shaking.
Before eight Everard was straying about the beach, watching the sun go down in splendour.

He smiled to himself frequently.

The hour had come for his last trial of Rhoda, and he felt some confidence as to the result.

If her mettle endured his test, if she declared herself willing not only to abandon her avowed ideal of life, but to defy the world's opinion by becoming his wife without forms of mutual bondage--she was the woman he had imagined, and by her side he would go cheerfully on his way as a married man.

Legally married; the proposal of free union was to be a test only.