de her delicate wheels and
trefoils, and smiled a more Sibylline smile than ever.

At last he came. When the sound of his footstep and of his voice reached
them where they stood in the drawing-room awaiting him, her Ladyship
turned to Mary, and her face was full of an immense relief.

"I didn't really believe he'd come," she said. "I've been feeling quite
sure that something would occur to prevent his coming."

"The weeks have been endless," Paul Jardine said, coming in and taking
her Ladyship's two hands. "How could you put me off till September? I've
had a heavy time. I don't like being made much of by other folk, so I am
going out again after Christmas."

Then, to be sure, Mary knew. The pair leaped to each other as though
they had been two halves of one whole separated long ago, and now drawn
together in a magnetic rush. Mary had always known that when Lady Agatha
attracted she attracted irresistibly; there was no half-way, no
haltings, no looking back possible.

"We are out of it, Mary, we two," Mrs. Morres said, and the smile had
become a trifle weak and wavering. "What do you suppose is going to
become of us? Hazels is a pleasant place, and there has always been
something of assurance and comfort about Agatha. I had a hard life, my
dear, before I came here. Yet what would she do with us? She can't very
well take us out to Africa. I, at least, should not know what to do in
those places."

It was a wooing that was not long a-doing. Her Ladyship and Mr. Jardine
came in one evening in time for afternoon tea. The days were closing in
by this time, and a fire was welcome. There had been rain, and the fire
sparkled on her Ladyship's black curls and her eyelashes as she stood by
the fire, taking off the long cloak in which she wrapped herself when
she went out walking in bad weather. Her eyes were at once bright and
shy.

"Congratulate me," she said. "He has consented to take me with him. He
held out for a long time, but I was determined to go. As though I should
take the chances!"

"It is I who am to be congratulated," said Paul Jardine, and the
happiness in his voice thrilled his listeners. "Of course, I wouldn't
have listened to her if she wasn't so splendidly strong. It will be an
odd place for a honeymoon. Do you think I ought not to have consented to
take her, Mrs. Morres?"

"For how long?"

Mrs. Morres's voice shook. All the Sibylline quality was gone from it
now.

"For a year. I must fulfil my enga