the only one in whom I also
have raised an affection which is free from greed or interest. I wonder
whether you may not have been sent by Providence simply to restore my
confidence in the world. How barren a place would it not be if it were
not for woman's love! When all seemed black around me this morning, I
tell you, Laura, that I seemed to turn to you and to your love as the
one thing on earth upon which I could rely. All else seemed shifting,
unstable, influenced by this or that base consideration. In you, and you
only, could I trust."

"And I in you, dear Raffles! I never knew what love was until I met
you."

She took a step towards him, her hands advanced, love shining in her
features, when in an instant Raffles saw the colour struck from her
face, and a staring horror spring into her eyes. Her blanched and rigid
face was turned towards the open door, while he, standing partly behind
it, could not see what it was that had so moved her.

"Hector!" she gasped, with dry lips.

A quick step in the hall, and a slim, weather-tanned young man sprang
forward into the room, and caught her up in his arms as if she had been
a feather.

"You darling!" he said; "I knew that I would surprise you. I came right
up from Plymouth by the night train. And I have long leave, and plenty
of time to get married. Isn't it jolly, dear Laura?"

He pirouetted round with her in the exuberance of his delight. As he
spun round, however, his eyes fell suddenly upon the pale and silent
stranger who stood by the door. Hector blushed furiously, and made an
awkward sailor bow, standing with Laura's cold and unresponsive hand
still clasped in his.

"Very sorry, sir--didn't see you," he said. "You'll excuse my going on
in this mad sort of way, but if you had served you would know what it
is to get away from quarter-deck manners, and to be a free man. Miss
McIntyre will tell you that we have known each other since we were
children, and as we are to be married in, I hope, a month at the latest,
we understand each other pretty well."

Raffles Haw still stood cold and motionless. He was stunned, benumbed,
by what he saw and heard. Laura drew away from Hector, and tried to free
her hand from his grasp.

"Didn't you get my letter at Gibraltar?" she asked.

"Never went to Gibraltar. Were ordered home by wire from Madeira.
Those chaps at the Admiralty never know their own minds for two hours
together. But what matter about a letter, Laura, so lo