e--he arose with the last note, abruptly enough,
and bade them good-night.

"What! so early, Gilbert?" Thorndyke said, looking at his watch. "What a
dickens of a hurry you're in. You've got no clients in Portland, have
you? and Miss Bourdon, is going to sing us half-a-dozen more songs yet."

Mr. Gilbert paid no attention whatever to this flippant young man. He
turned his back upon him indeed, and explained elaborately to Uncle
Reuben that it was impossible for him to remain longer to-night, but
that he would call early on the morrow.

"He is very much changed," remarked Aunt Hester, thoughtfully; "don't
you think so, Norry? He's nothing like so pleasant and free, as he used
to be."

"Particularly grumpy, I should say," interposed Mr. Thorndyke.
"'Pleasant and free' are the last terms I should think of applying to
Richard Gilbert. Not half a bad fellow either, old Gilbert, but an awful
prig--don't you think so, Miss Bourdon?"

"I like Mr. Gilbert very much," Miss Bourdon answered, strumming idly on
the keys; "and I think him pleasant. He seemed out of spirits to-night,
though, I fancy."

It was bright, frosty starlight as the lawyer walked back to town. He
walked rapidly, his head well up, a dark frown clouding his face.

"Any one but Thorndyke--any one but Thorndyke!" he was thinking
bitterly. Alas! Mr. Gilbert, would you not have been jealous of the
Archbishop of Canterbury had that dignitary been "keeping company" with
Miss Bourdon? "And she loves him already--already. A very old story to
Laurence Thorndyke. Six-and-twenty years, a well-shaped nose, two blue
eyes, a mustache, and the easy insolence of the 'golden youth' of New
York. What else has he but that? What else is needed to win _any_
woman's heart? And hers is his, for good or for evil, for ever and ever.
He is the Prince Charming of her fairy tale, and she has caught his
wandering, artist fancy, as scores have caught it before. And when I
tell her the truth, that his plighted wife awaits him, what then? Little
Norine! to think that you should fall into the power of Laurence
Thorndyke."

Yes, she was in his power--for she loved him. Had it all not been so
delightfully romantic, so like a chapter out of one of her pet novels,
that first meeting, when Fate itself had flung him wounded and bleeding
at her feet? Was it not all photographed forever on her mind, a picture
whose vividness time never could dim! It had befallen in this way:

On the afternoon