back to the engine; he sat opposite.
The guard looked in, thought they were lovers, and did not show other
travellers into that compartment. They talked on strictly ordinary
matters; what she thought he did not know, but at every stopping station
he dreaded intrusion. Before they were halfway to London the event
he had just begun to realize was a patent fact. The Beloved was again
embodied; she filled every fibre and curve of this woman's form.

Drawing near the great London station was like drawing near Doomsday.
How should he leave her in the turmoil of a crowded city street? She
seemed quite unprepared for the rattle of the scene. He asked her where
her aunt lived.

'Bayswater,' said Miss Bencomb.

He called a cab, and proposed that she should share it till they arrived
at her aunt's, whose residence lay not much out of the way to his own.
Try as he would he could not ascertain if she understood his feelings,
but she assented to his offer and entered the vehicle.

'We are old friends,' he said, as they drove onward.

'Indeed, we are,' she answered, without smiling.

'But hereditarily we are mortal enemies, dear Juliet.'

'Yes--What did you say?'

'I said Juliet.'

She laughed in a half-proud way, and murmured: 'Your father is my
father's enemy, and my father is mine. Yes, it is so.' And then their
eyes caught each other's glance. 'My queenly darling!' he burst out;
'instead of going to your aunt's, will you come and marry me?'

A flush covered her over, which seemed akin to a flush of rage. It was
not exactly that, but she was excited. She did not answer, and he feared
he had mortally offended her dignity. Perhaps she had only made use of
him as a convenient aid to her intentions. However, he went on-- 'Your
father would not be able to reclaim you then! After all, this is not
so precipitate as it seems. You know all about me, my history, my
prospects. I know all about you. Our families have been neighbours
on that isle for hundreds of years, though you are now such a London
product.'

'Will you ever be a Royal Academician?' she asked musingly, her
excitement having calmed down.

'I hope to be--I WILL be, if you will be my wife.'

His companion looked at him long.

'Think what a short way out of your difficulty this would be,' he
continued. 'No bother about aunts, no fetching home by an angry father.'

It seemed to decide her. She yielded to his embrace.

'How long will it take to marry?' Miss Benc