at is it you are going to say to me?"
she asked, yet not disengaging her hand.

"I said it all in the court-room," he rejoined; "and you heard."

"You want me to marry you--Charley?" she asked frankly.

"If you think there is no just impediment," he answered, with a smile.

She drew her hand away, and for a moment there was a struggle in
her mind--or heart. He knew of what she was thinking, and he did not
consider it of serious consequence. Romance was a trivial thing, and
women were prone to become absorbed in trivialities. When the woman had
no brains, she might break her life upon a trifle. But Kathleen had an
even mind, a serene temperament. Her nerves were daily cooled in a bath
of nature's perfect health. She had never had an hour's illness in her
life.

"There is no just or unjust impediment, Kathleen," he added presently,
and took her hand again.

She looked him in the eyes clearly. "You really think so?" she asked.

"I know so," he answered. "We shall be two perfect panels in one picture
of life."

CHAPTER III. AFTER FIVE YEARS

"You have forgotten me?"

Charley Steele's glance was serenely non-committal as he answered drily:

"I cannot remember doing so."

The other man's eyelids drew down with a look of anger, then the humour
of the impertinence worked upon him, and he gave a nervous little laugh
and said: "I am John Brown."

"Then I'm sure my memory is not at fault," remarked Charley, with an
outstretched hand. "My dear Brown! Still preaching little sermons?"

"Do I look it?" There was a curious glitter in John Brown's eyes. "I'm
not preaching little sermons, and you know it well enough." He laughed,
but it was a hard sort of mirth. "Perhaps you forgot to remember that,
though," he sneeringly added. "It was the work of your hands."

"That's why I should remember to forget it--I am the child of modesty."
Charley touched the corners of his mouth with his tongue, as though his
lips were dry, and his eyes wandered to a saloon a little farther down
the street.

"Modesty is your curse," rejoined Brown mockingly.

"Once when you preached at me you said that beauty was my curse."
Charley laughed a curt, distant little laugh which was no more the
spontaneous humour lying for ever behind his thoughts than his eye-glass
was the real sight of his eyes, though since childhood this laugh and
his eye-glass were as natural to all expression of himself as John
Brown's outward and showy frankness di