d suddenly the thought that this was her husband who was
leaving her thus came over her with a wave of irresistible emotion.
Her throat ached with a piercing realisation of the tragedy of it, and
without stopping to think, she ran down the steps and pursued him,
panting and almost weeping. He turned at the sound of her hurrying
steps, puzzled by the pursuit and on his guard against her influence.
He was suspicious of her intentions now, and waited for her to explain
the meaning of this mercurial change.

"Tom," she said in a choking voice, laying a detaining hand upon his
sleeve. But she was possessed by an emotion, rather than by a thought
that could be expressed in words, and so she stood thus awhile in
silence. His grim immobility and manly self-containment brought back
some flavour of that early romance, when he, unaware as yet of her
fancy, paid her slight heed, and for that very reason appealed to her
imagination.

The change in her mood seemed to flow into him like a solvent that
broke up his resentment and suspicion. That realisation of their
relationship which had sent her after him was conveyed in the thrilling
note of her voice when she uttered his name, and though at first he had
refused to understand it thus, her lingering touch became its full
interpreter. They searched each other's eyes mutely, and he knew
before he began to speak that she was his.

"Felicity," he said, his eyes gathering an intense, exultant light,
"you 've come after me of your own accord, and you 've got to abide by
it. You 've played fast and loose with me long enough. Don't go back
into the house--come with me now--you're my wife--why should n't you
come with me? Whose business is it but our own? I say you must!"

With an effort she withdrew her eyes from his face and looked back at
the open door of her father's house, imprinting every detail upon her
memory: the dull red carpet, the antique chairs, the stairway hung with
old engravings, climbing upward to the room which she was never again
to enter as before. The temptation assailed her to cut once and for
all the Gordian knot, and obeying its impulse, she began to walk down
the flagging beside him.

At the street she paused once more and pressed her hands piteously
against her heart, trying to think. This was the spot where Leigh had
kissed her, and his ghost seemed to confront her there in the cold
moonlight, looking at her with sad, reproachful eyes, eyes full of