a few feet of
green-painted boards separating us. How I crossed them I never knew. He
came halfway, no doubt.

I should never have done the journey alone, and I wondered too how it
was we met as lovers! That was the most wonderful part of all. How, when
I did not even know that he cared, could it have happened? It was all
too wonderful, and I was too dazed with happiness to question anything
at the moment. I only knew that the world had become a paradise, and
that the past years of doubt and perplexity had fallen away like a
disused garment.

Then we began to talk, and the mystery deepened. He spoke of a telegram.
I had never received one! And my telegram? I had never sent one! He
laughed, and when I said I didn't understand, he said what was the use
of understanding when knowing was sufficient?

It was all very puzzling, but I was content. There was so much to talk
of, so many explanations to make and to hear! But in time we came back
to the telegram. There had been no such thing!

He laughed. "I have it here," he said, putting his hand on his
coat-pocket.

"Show it to me," I pleaded.

Never; it was his, and his alone.

"But nothing is yours now that is not mine," I urged, "at least, if you
have asked me to marry you."

"Betty," he said, "I quite forgot. I came home for the express purpose
of doing so. I have thought and dreamed of nothing else, all through the
long marches in Africa; all the way home I have thought of that and of
your answer. Betty, will you marry me?"

"I shall be delighted, Captain Buchanan. But where is my telegram to
you, your telegram to me?"

"It. I think Nannie must have one."

"And did she answer it? Oh, what did she say?"

"Never mind; she said exactly the right thing. Don't let's discuss
Nannie's telegram when we have to make up for the silence of years!
O Betty! shall I wake up?"

A little later he said, "Tell me, did you care that night at the
Frasers'?"

I said I never remembered a time when I didn't care.

"O Betty! if only you hadn't been so proud!"

"Or you so horribly ununderstandable!"

Chapter XIX

"You wonderful Nannie," I said later, as I sat at her feet, "how did you
do it?"

"Quite easily," said Nannie. "When I saw that you must go to Hames, as
of course you had to, I thought to myself, I'll wait! Years ago my lady
said to me, I Nannie, don't let my child throw away her own chance of
happiness. I feel that a day may come when she will be calle