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ntil she was years more experienced did she study that never-forgotten expression, study it as a whole--words, tone, look. Then, and not until then, did she know that she had instinctively shrunk because he had laid bare his base and all but loveless motive in marrying her. "And," he added, "I'll force father to give me a big interest in the business very soon. Then--we'll announce it." Announce IT? Announce WHAT? "Why, I'm a married woman," she thought, and she stumbled and almost fell. The way danced before her eyes, all spotted with black. She was just able to walk aboard the boat and drop into a seat. He sat beside her, took her hand and bent over it; as he kissed it a tear fell on it. He looked at her and she saw that his eyes were swimming. A sob surged into her throat, but she choked it back. "Jack!" she murmured, and hid her face in her handkerchief. When they looked each at the other both smiled--her foreboding had retreated to the background. She began to turn the ring round and round upon her finger. "Mrs. John Dumont," she said. "Doesn't it sound queer?" And she gazed dreamily away toward the ranges of hills between which the river danced and sparkled as it journeyed westward. When she again became conscious of her immediate surroundings--other than Dumont--she saw a deck-hand looking at her with a friendly grin. Instantly she covered the ring with her hand and handkerchief. "But I mustn't wear it," she said to Dumont. "No--not on your finger." He laughed and drew from his pocket a slender gold chain. "But you might wear it on this, round your neck. It'll help to remind you that you don't belong to yourself any more, but to me." She took the chain--she was coloring in a most becoming way--and hid it and the ring in her bosom. Then she drew off a narrow hoop of gold with a small setting and pushed it on his big little finger. "And THAT, sir," she said, with a bewitching look, "may help you not to forget that YOU belong to me." She left the ferry in advance of him and faced Olivia just in time for them to go down together to the half-past twelve o'clock dinner. V. FOUR FRIENDS. As Mrs. Trent's was the best board in Battle Field there were more applicants than she could make places for at her one table. In the second week of the term she put a small table in the alcove of the dining-room and gave it to her "star" boarders--Pierson, Olivia and Pauline. They invit
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