"You must have felt something, that afternoon when I first proposed to
you!"

"You didn't really want me, Hugh. Not then."

Surprised, and a little uncomfortable at this evidence of intuition, I
started to protest. It seemed to me then as though I had always wanted
her.

"No, no," she exclaimed, "you didn't. You were carried away by your
feelings--you hadn't made up your mind. Indeed, I can't see why you want
me now."

"You believe I do," I said, and drew her toward me.

"Yes, I--I believe it, now. But I can't see why. There must be so many
attractive girls in the city, who know so much more than I do."

I sought fervidly to reassure her on this point.... At length when we
went into the house she drew away from me at arm's length and gave me
one long searching look, as though seeking to read my soul.

"Hugh, you will always love me--to the very end, won't you?"

"Yes," I whispered, "always."

In the library, one on each side of the table, under the lamp, Ezra
Hutchins and his wife sat reading. Mrs. Hutchins looked up, and I saw
that she had divined.

"Mother, I am engaged to Hugh," Maude said, and bent over and kissed
her. Ezra and I stood gazing at them. Then he turned to me and pressed
my hand.

"Well, I never saw the man who was good enough for her, Hugh. But God
bless you, my son. I hope you will prize her as we prize her."

Mrs. Hutchins embraced me. And through her tears she, too, looked long
into my face. When she had released me Ezra had his watch in his hand.

"If you're going on the ten o'clock train, Hugh--"

"Father!" Maude protested, laughing, "I must say I don't call that very
polite."...

In the train I slept but fitfully, awakening again and again to recall
the extraordinary fact that I was now engaged to be married, to go
over the incidents of the evening. Indifferent to the backings and
the bumpings of the car, the voices in the stations, the clanging of
locomotive bells and all the incomprehensible startings and stoppings,
exalted yet troubled I beheld Maude luminous with the love I had
amazingly awakened, a love somewhere beyond my comprehension. For her
indeed marriage was made in heaven. But for me? Could I rise now to the
ideal that had once been mine, thrust henceforth evil out of my life?
Love forever, live always in this sanctuary she had made for me? Would
the time come when I should feel a sense of bondage?...

The wedding was set for the end of September. I continued