dinner. His spirits, as
usual, were of the best, and from time to time Honora was aware of his
glance. Then she lowered her eyes. She sat as in a dream; and, try as
she might, her thoughts would not range themselves. She seemed to see
him but dimly, to hear what he said faintly; and it conveyed nothing to
her mind.

This man was to be her husband! Over and over she repeated it to
herself. His name was Howard Spence, and he was on the highroad to
riches and success, and she was to live in New York. Ten days before he
had not existed for her. She could not bring herself to believe that he
existed now. Did she love him? How could she love him, when she did not
realize him? One thing she knew, that she had loved him that morning.

The fetters of her past life were broken, and this she would not
realize. She had opened the door of the cage for what? These were the
fragments of thoughts that drifted through her mind like tattered clouds
across an empty sky after a storm. Peter Erwin appeared to her more than
once, and he was strangely real. But he belonged to the past. Course
succeeded course, and she talked subconsciously to Mr. Holt and
Joshua--such is the result of feminine training.

After dinner she stood on the porch. The rain had ceased, a cool damp
breeze shook the drops from the leaves, and the stars were shining.
Presently, at the sound of a step behind her, she started. He was
standing at her shoulder.

"Honora!" he said.

She did not move.

"Honora, I haven't seen you--alone--since morning. It seems like a
thousand years. Honora?"

"Yes."

"Did you mean it?

"Did I mean what?"

"When you said you'd marry me." His voice trembled a little. "I've been
thinking of nothing but you all day. You're not--sorry? You haven't
changed your mind?"

She shook her head.

"At dinner when you wouldn't look at me, and this afternoon--"

"No, I'm not sorry," she said, cutting him short. "I'm not sorry."

He put his arm about her with an air that was almost apologetic. And,
seeing that she did not resist, he drew her to him and kissed her.
Suddenly, unaccountably to her, she clung to him.

"You love me!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," she whispered, "but I am tired. I--I am going upstairs, Howard. I
am tired."

He kissed her again.

"I can't believe it!" he said. "I'll make you a queen. And we'll be
married in the autumn, Honora." He nodded boyishly towards the open
windows of the library. "Shall I tell them?" he ask