le.

"I know all that," she said, speaking rapidly, with headlong impulse.
"But, don't you see how difficult it is for me? They are all on his
side, and he is so horribly strong. Oh, I was a fool I know to accept
him. But we were waltzing and it came so suddenly. I never stopped to
think. I wish I could get away now, but I can't."

"I can tell you of a way," said Brandon.

She glanced at him.

"Oh, yes, I know. But I can't be engaged to two people at once. I
couldn't face it. I detest scenes."

"There need be no scene," he said. "You have only to come to me and give
me the right to defend you. I ask for nothing better. Even Caryl would
scarcely have the impertinence to dispute it. As my wife you will be
absolutely secure from any interference."

She was gazing at him wide-eyed.

"Do you mean a runaway marriage?" she questioned slowly.

He drew nearer still, and possessed himself of her hands.

"Yes, just that," he said. "It would take a little courage, but you have
plenty of that. And the rest I would see to. It wouldn't be so very
difficult, you know. Mrs. Lockyard would help us, and you would be
absolutely safe with me. I haven't much to offer you, I admit. I'm as
poor as a church mouse. But at least you would find me"--he smiled into
her startled eyes--"a very easy-going husband, I assure you."

"Oh, I don't know!" Doris said. "I don't know!"

Yet still she left her hands in his and still she listened to him. That
airy reference of his to his poverty affected her favourably. He would
scarcely have made it, she told herself, with an unconscious effort to
silence unacknowledged misgivings, if her fortune had been the sole
attraction.

"Look here," he said, breaking in upon these hasty meditations, "I don't
want you to do anything in a hurry. Take a little while to think it
over. Let me know to-morrow. I am not leaving till the evening. You
shall do nothing, so far as I am concerned, against your will. I want
you, now and always, to do exactly as you like. You believe that?"

"I quite believe you mean it at the present moment," she said with a
decidedly doubtful smile.

"It will be so always," said Brandon, "whether you believe it or not."

And with considerable ceremony he raised her hands to his lips and
deliberately kissed them. It seemed to Doris at that moment that even so
headlong a scheme as this was not without its very material advantages.
There were so many drawbacks to being betrothed.