it, what can I say? Let me alone for a
minute, Harry dear."

He was well content to wait and watch. All time seemed before them, and
how better could he fill it? He seemed himself to suffer in this hour a
joyful transformation; to know better why men lived and loved to live,
to reach out to the full strength and the full function of his being.
The world changed for him as he changed it for her.

Twice and thrice she had paced the gallery before she came and stood
opposite to him. She put her hands up to her throat, saying, "I'm
stifled--stifled with happiness, Harry."

For answer he sprang forward and caught her in his arms. In the movement
he brushed roughly against the table; there was a little crash, and poor
Mr Gainsborough's birthday gift lay smashed to bits on the floor. For
the second time their love bore hard on Mr Gainsborough's crockery.
Startled they turned to look, and then they both broke into merry
laughter. The trumpery thing had seemed a sign to them, and now the sign
was broken. Their first kiss was mirthful over its destruction.

With a sigh of joy she disengaged herself from him.

"That's settled then," said Harry. He paused a moment. "You had Janie
and Bob Broadley here to-night? I saw them as I lay hidden by the road.
Does that kind of engagement attract you, Cecily?"

"Ours won't be like that," she said, laughing triumphantly.

"Don't let's have one at all," he suggested, coming near to her again.
"Let's have no engagement. Just a wedding."

"What?" she cried.

"It must be a beastly time," he went on, "and all the talk there's been
about us will make it more beastly still. Fancy Miss S. and all the rest
of them! And--do you particularly want to wait? What I want is to be
settled down, here with you."

Her eyes sparkled as she listened; she was in the mood, she was of the
stuff, for any adventure.

"I should like to run off with you now," said he. "I don't want to leave
you at all, you see."

"Run off now?" She gave a joyful little laugh. "That's just what I
should like!"

"Then we'll do it," he declared. "Well, to-morrow morning anyhow."

"Do you mean it?" she asked.

"Do you say no to it?"

She drew herself up with pride. "I say no to nothing that you ask of
me."

Their hands met again as she declared her love and trust. "You've really
come to me?" he heard her murmur. "Back to Blent and back to me?"

"Yes," he answered, smiling. She had brought into his mind again the
trut