tring upon the table, and a few wedding presents
standing in the midst of their packing.

Millicent's pretty face was quite white. She looked from Meredith to
Oscard with a sudden horror in her eyes. For the first time in her life
she was at a loss--quite taken aback.

"Oh-h!" she whispered, and that was all.

The silence that followed was tense as if something in the atmosphere
was about to snap; and in the midst of it the wheels of Sir John's
retreating carriage came to the ears of the three persons in the
drawing-room.

It was only for a moment, but in that moment the two men saw clearly. It
was as if the veil from the girl's mind had fallen--leaving her thoughts
confessed, bare before them. In the same instant they both saw--they
both sped back in thought to their first meeting, to the hundred links
of the chain that brought them to the present moment--they KNEW; and
Millicent felt that they knew.

"Are YOU going to be married to-morrow?" asked Guy Oscard deliberately.
He never was a man to whom a successful appeal for the slightest
mitigation of justice could have been made. His dealings had ever been
with men, from whom he had exacted as scrupulous an honour as he had
given. He did not know that women are different--that honour is not
their strong point.

Millicent did not answer. She looked to Meredith to answer for her; but
Meredith was looking at Oscard, and in his lazy eyes there glowed the
singular affection and admiration which he had bestowed long time before
on this simple gentleman--his mental inferior.

"Are YOU going to be married to-morrow?" repeated Oscard, standing quite
still, with a calmness that frightened her.

"Yes," she answered rather feebly.

She knew that she could explain it all. She could have explained it
to either of them separately, but to both together, somehow it
was difficult. Her mind was filled with clamouring arguments and
explanations and plausible excuses; but she did not know which to select
first. None of them seemed quite equal to this occasion. These men
required something deeper, and stronger, and simpler than she had to
offer them.

Moreover, she was paralysed by a feeling that was quite new to her--a
horrid feeling that something had gone from her. She had lost her
strongest, her single arm: her beauty. This seemed to have fallen from
her. It seemed to count for nothing at this time. There is a time
that comes as surely as death will come in the life of every