I left him to fetch my hat. As I passed the nursery I told the nurse to take the baby down to him. I took care to address her through the door, not wishing her to see my face, which still bore the strong traces of my recent tears. I purposely delayed my return that he might have time to fondle his child and send it away again with the nurse. I found that he had practised this small stratagem, and I was able to leave the house with him without being observed by either the nurse or my aunt.

We walked towards the most unfrequented part of the country. Beautiful indeed was the morning, with a clear inspiriting breeze sweeping over a pallid tender sky, and attuning all distant sounds into a gentle music.

We talked of love. Hand in hand with him I walked on, all my doubts laid, my fears dispelled, serenely happy in his presence.

"You ought to have been mine from the first, Maggie. Who could relish your character like me? The dry bread of my solitude will now be. salted. I shall always have with me my companion, my lover, my wife. I don't measure victory by the time it occupies. I measure it by the doubts and the passions that are comprised in the fight. A man hanging over the edge of a precipice seems to live an eternity, till he falls or is rescued. So with me. I thought the time that elapsed between our meetings yesterday and to-day would never go. I protest I have lived through ten years more rapidly. Be easy, Maggie. My victory took me a long time. Your arithmetic of passion may get long figures out of it."

"And what about our future?"

"Our future? It is a shining table-land."

"Be pleased to descend to the commonplace. How about our marriage ?"

"You call our marriage commonplace! If I were to call it so your eyes would grow big with terror and distrust at once. You would say, 'He talks so lightly of marriage-perhaps he doesn't mean to marry me!'"

"But how, when, and where are we to be married ?"

"How? Before a registrar. When? The day after to-morrow. Where? In London."

"The day after to-morrow!" I exclaimed.

"To be sure," he responded, "you will leave Lorton to-morrow." I became silent and troubled.

"She is going to cry!" he exclaimed. "Oh you singular little woman! You do not belong to these isles, wee tim'rous thing, but were born in some Icelandic cavern, where Freya, the goddess of souls, espied you, and gave you a little red mouse for a spirit."

But I was not to be inspirited by his banter; so he became serious.

"Unless you want your aunt to know that your intention is to become my wife" he began.

But I interrupted by vehemently crying,

"I would not have my aunt know for the brightest future of love you could offer me. When it is a fait accompli it will be time enough for her to hear. Then I shall not have to face her."

"Precisely.

Wherefore I command that you hold yourself in readiness to accompany me to-morrow by the early train to London. Are you terrified at this proposition ?"

"No. I am resolute. It is the only course to adopt."

"Good. We shall give you a warrior's soul yet, instead of a little red mouse."

"How about the baby and the nurse?"

"We will be married first, then post to Newtown. All this will occupy half a dozen hours. Then I will write to the nurse, tell her to bring the child to me, enclosè her fare, meet her, and bring her home. See how difficulties vanish when you mean a thing!"

"What will my aunt say!" I exclaimed involuntarily. "How ungrateful she will think me! What a wretch she will call me, to abandon her in her solitude after her recent kindness!"

"Now," he exclaimed," we are going to be treated to a touch of what I call the sentimentalism of irony."

"There may be some sentimentalism, but there is no irony in what I have said," I answered.

"You are not in earnest in professing any regrets at the thoughts your conduct may give rise to in your aunt?"

"I would not have cared a year or two ago, but latterly she has been treating me with kindness."

CHAPTER XII.

I ASSUME in beginning this chapter the privilege of the playwright, who having dropped his curtain suffers it to rise again on a new act and a

new scene.

Let me show you my home at Newtown. A low long-built house, very white-walled, with windows close fitting, small, and numerously paned with dark burnished glass, after an old but cosy fashion of ' architecture. Chester House stands in very tolerably-sized grounds, well hemmed off from the smooth turnpike road outside the surrounding fields by a low, rugged wall, murderously anointed with broken bottle-glass. The hall door is of oak, well studded with black-headed nails. It might belong to a fortress. As you enter the wide but low hall, on either side of which hang some sombre pictures, a large window of stained glass dyes you with a dim and complicated radiance. It confronts you from the landing on the stairs, and illustrates' Christ's Charge to

Tr mi teret at cree. You would

Say nagers be doesn't mean to

12

or vien af viere are we to be married?"

+Ew! Belma regetrar. When? The day after to-morrow.
? Is Lat

Te far aber to-morrow!" I exclaimed.

*Tote are," he responded, "you will leave Lorton to-morrow."
I frame lent and troubled.

is going to cry!" he exclaimed. "Oh you singular 1
woman! You do not belong to these isles, wee tim'rous t
were born in some Icelandic cavern, where Freya.
espied you, and gave you a little red mouse for a
But I was not to be inspirited by his

serious.

"Unless you want your aunt to know that your intention is to become my wife my wife" he began.

But I interrupted by vehemently crying,

"I would not have my aunt know for the brightest future of love you could offer me. When it is a fait accompli it will be time enough for her to hear. Then I shall not have to face her."

"Precisely.

Wherefore I command that you hold yourself in readiness to accompany me to-morrow by the early train to London. Are you terrified at this proposition?"

"No. I am resolute. It is the only course to adopt."

"Good. We shall give you a warrior's soul yet, instead of a little red mouse."

"How about the baby and the nurse?"

"We will be married first, then post to Newtown. All this will occupy half a dozen hours. Then I will write to the nurse, tell her to bring the child to me, enclose her fare, meet her, and bring her home. See how difficulties vanish when you mean a thing!" "What will my aunt say!" I exclaimed involuntarily. "How ungrateful she will think me! What a wretch she will call me, to abandon her in her solitude after her recent kindness!"

"Now," he exclaimed, "we are going to be treated to a touch of what I call the sentimentalism of irony."

"There may be some sentimentalism, but there is no irony in what I have said," I answered.

"You are not in earnest in professing any regrets at the thoughts your conduct may give rise to in your aunt ?"

"I would not have cared a year or two ago, but latterly she has been treating me with kindness."

CHAPTER XII.

I ASSUME in beginning this chapter the privilege of the playwright, who having dropped his curtain suffers it to rise again on a new act and a

new ne.

.1

home at Newtown. A low long-built house, indows close fitting, small, and numerously

glass, after an old but cosy fashion of ' stands in very tolerably-sized grounds, well turnpike road outside the surrounding murderously anointed with broken ak, well studded with black-headed 3. As you enter the wide but low sombre pictures, a large window of complicated radiance. It confronts and illustrates' Christ's Charge to

Peter.' The subject does not seem out of keeping. Even a fastidious taste might recognise its harmony with the slippery highly-polished oaken staircase, the termination of the hall in the form of a gothic archway, the prevailing gloom, which receives but little light from the thick, stained glass. On the left is the drawing-room, massively furnished: the dark cabinets, the sombre pictures, the deep green carpet, the heavy curtains, the quaintly carved chairs and mediævally designed sofas and settees, finding but small relief in the gleam of silver from tall candelabras and broad inkstands. To the right is the parlour fitted up even more sombrely than the drawing-room: for a kind of solemnity is suggested by the high bookcase laden with works old enough, curious enough, and unreadable enough to have ravished the heart of a Southey, a Lamb, or a Johnson. Upstairs there is more airiness. Still the old four-posters with which the upper part of the house abounds lose nothing of their funereal aspect by the snow-white quilts, the sumptuous toilet-tables, and the more modern furniture which make the bedsteads resemble a very old building--a church or an abbey in the centre of a very new town.

Chester House is Major Rivers' residence. This is the house he had furnished for the reception of himself and Kate. His love of the sombre, illustrated by his choice of furniture and pictures, might have remained unsuspected in the prevailing tone-half satirical, half earnest, but light withal-of his conversation.

On the day of my marriage we drove to Chester House, and the same post that bore a letter to the nurse from the Major, bidding her return with the baby to him, conveyed a long epistle from me to my aunt, begging her forgiveness, pleading my love, and assuring her of my grateful memory. To this letter I received no answer. I awaited the arrival of the nurse with curiosity, being anxious to know how my aunt received the news of my elopement-for such it was. The little Frenchwoman herself manifested no surprise whatever at the event. She treated it with a perfectly Parisian indifference, accepting me as her mistress unhesitatingly, and settling down to her duties with the obedience and respect towards myself which, had I been her mistress before, I might have understood.

"Were you not astonished to hear of my marriage with Major Rivers?" I asked.

"Du tout, Madame. Where there is love there is nothing but unexpectedness. Il n'y a point d'indiscrétion. He would be an imbecile who should expect anything more from love than surprise. And as I knew there was love, and as I was prepared for surprise and she made a peroration with her shoulders.

"Et ma tante, Celestine?"

'Madame, when you did not come to dinner she seemed to have made up her mind that there was something wrong. The afternoon