irling now."

"As long as you like, my dearest. I don't ask you for love now; that
will come by-and-by. Only give me hope, and I can wait--wait as long as
Jacob for Rachel, if necessary."

He lifted her hand to his lips, but let it fall quickly again, for it
felt like ice. She was looking straight before her, at the pale, yellow
sunset, her dark eyes filled with a dusky fire, but her face as
colourless as the snowy ground.

"Are you ill, Kate?" he said, in alarm; "have I distressed you? have I
agitated you by my sudden coming?"

"You have agitated me," she replied. "My head is reeling. Don't talk to
me any more. I want to be alone and to think."

They walked side by side the rest of the way in total silence. When they
reached the house, Kate ran up to her own room at once, while Captain
Danton came out into the hall to greet his old friend. The two men
lounged out in the grounds, smoking before-dinner cigars, and Sir Ronald
briefly stated the object of his return, and his late proposal to his
daughter. Captain Danton listened silently and a little anxiously. He
had known the Scottish baronet a long time; knew how wealthy he was, and
how passionately he loved his daughter; but for all that he had an
instinctive feeling that Kate would not be happy with him.

"She has given you no reply, then?" he said, when Sir Ronald had
finished.

"None, as yet; but she will shortly. Should that reply be favourable,
Captain Danton, yours, I trust, will be favourable also?"

He spoke rather haughtily, and a flush deepened the florid hue of the
Captain's face.

"My daughter shall please herself. If she thinks she can be happy as
your wife, I have nothing to say. You spoke of Reginald Stanford a
moment ago; do you know anything of his doings since he left Canada?"

"Very little. He has sold his commission, and quitted the army--some
say, quitted England. His family, you know, have cast him off for his
dishonourable conduct."

"I know--I received a letter from Stanford Royals some months ago, in
which his father expressed his strong regret, and his disapproval of his
son's conduct."

"That is all you know about him?"

"That is all. I made no inquiry--I thought the false hound beneath
notice."

Captain Danton sighed. He had loved his pretty, bright-eyed,
auburn-haired Rose very dearly, and he could not quite forget her, in
spite of her misdoing. They sauntered up and down in the grey, cold,
wintry twilight, until the ring