ving force of men, as the safety
valve to the engine. Thus, in a simile surely destined to delight him,
she summed her intentions and desires.

She had often wondered what must be essential to the fullest employment
of her energies and the best and purest use of her thinking; and now she
saw that marriage answered the question--not marriage in the abstract,
but just marriage with this man. He, of all she had known, was the one
with whom she felt best endowed to mingle and merge, so that their
united forces should be poured to help the world and water with increase
the modest territory through which they must flow.

She turned to go to sleep at last, yet dearly longed to tell Raymond and
amaze her father with the great tidings.

An impulse prompted her to leave her lover not a moment more in doubt.
She rose, therefore, and descended to his room, which opened beside his
private study on the ground floor. The hour was nearly four on an autumn
morning. She listened, heard him move restlessly and knew that he did
not sleep. He struck a match and lighted a cigarette, for he often
smoked at night.

Then she knocked at the door.

"Who the devil's that?" he shouted.

"I," she said, opening the door an inch and talking softly. "Stop where
you are and stop worrying and go to sleep. I'm going to marry you, Ray,
and I'm happier than ever I was before in all my life."

Then she shut the door and fled away.

CHAPTER XVII

SABINA AND ABEL

Now was Raymond Ironsyde too busy to think any thought but one, and
though distractions crowded down on the hour, he set them aside so far
as it was possible. His betrothal very completely dominated his life and
the new relation banished the old attitude between him and Estelle. The
commonplace existence, as of sister and brother, seemed to perish
suddenly, and in its place, as a butterfly from a chrysalis, there
reigned the emotional days of prelude to marriage. The mere force of the
situation inspired them and they grew as loverly as any boy and girl. It
was no make-believe that led them to follow the immemorial way and glory
only in the companionship of each other; they felt the desire, and love
that had awakened so tardily and moved in a manner so desultory, seemed
concerned to make up for lost time.

Arthur Waldron was not so greatly astonished as they expected, and
whatever may have been his private hopes and desires for his daughter,
he never uttered them, but seeing her