er was
in vain striving to suppress.

"Sorry to see you? Oh, Maurice, my darling, I have thought of late I
should never see you again," she cried, breaking into a storm of sobs as
she threw herself on his breast.

And this was the girl who, but a few days before, and almost on that
very spot, had made an utter mock of all that savoured of real feeling.
"I almost wish it would come true. It would be such a novel sensation,"
had been her words to Marian. Ah, but it had come true--and that long
before she uttered them. Certain it is that none there at Sunningdale
had ever seen this side of Violet Avory; had ever suspected this secret
chapter in her history.

"Don't cry, little one," said Maurice, soothingly, drawing her further
within the recesses of the garden, and away from the obnoxious quince
hedge, which might shelter prying eyes. "We are going to have such a
happy time together now."

"Now, yes," she answered. "But--after? Nothing but misery."

"Not a bit of it. We can go on waiting. Patience--that's the word.
When I used to get my `cast' hung up or otherwise tangled while fishing,
instead of blowing off a volley of cuss words, and tearing and tugging
at the stuff, I made it a rule to remark aloud, `Pazienza!' That
answered, kept one in a cool and even mind, and saved further tangle and
a lot of cussing. Well, that must be our watchword--`Pazienza!'"

"I have got you now, at all events," she murmured, pressing his arm.
"But now, don't you see why I met you as a perfect stranger last night?"

"Not altogether. It annoyed me a good bit--in fact, worried me all the
evening. I should have thought it would have been better to have let
them know we were old acquaintances, at any rate. They would have left
us more to ourselves."

"Not a bit of it. They would have set up a romance on the spot. As
soon as a woman gets wind of a romance, she can't for the life of her,
with the best intentions in the world, help watching its progress. It
would have been a case of every one hurrying to _ecarter_ themselves as
soon as they saw as together, doing it, too, in the usual blundering and
clumsy manner. I know it all so well--I've seen it so often, and, I may
as well add, gone through it."

"That was the reason, was it? Well, you do know a thing or two, little
one," he said admiringly. "But look here. We must snatch a little time
together as often as we can. We'll make Selwood get up rides and
expeditions