were in the room,
Derby had looked at her with an expression that set Nina's heart
beating, but now they were alone it had entirely vanished and he kept
his head persistently turned away. She wondered how she could ever have
failed to find his profile splendid. But he seemed so detached, so
bafflingly absorbed, that all the old ache that she had felt that day
when he had advised her to marry Billy Dalton--and since--came
suffocatingly back. The old doubt suddenly gripped her--could her aunt
be mistaken?

Finally, it came to her, intuitively, that her whole future was hanging
on this moment, and the impulse was overwhelming to forget that she was
the woman. It seemed that she must herself force the issue and end the
doubt, at all hazards--this doubt which hammered at the door of her
intellect and yet which her heart refused stubbornly to accept.

"Jack"--she tried hard to carry out her resolve not to let the false
pride of a moment perhaps spoil her whole life; but the inborn reserve
of generations of womanhood rebelled. In her uncertainty and anguish
each moment of silence seemed weighted into leaden despair, but she was
utterly unable to say what she had intended. At last her lips parted
and, like the wail of a lost child, "Jack----" she cried. It was all she
could say before her eyes filled and a queer little gulp came into her
throat; then, with superhuman effort yet hardly articulate, came the
whisper, "H-ave you n-othing to say--to me?"

All at once he turned and looked at her--looked again and caught her by
the shoulders. The love and ardor of which the princess had spoken
flamed unmistakably in his expression now--she saw him swallow hard, and
it seemed to her as though her very soul were wandering lost in the blue
spaces of his eyes as they searched hers, and then through it all his
voice came huskily.

"Nina!"

For another long, intense moment he gazed at her earnestly, then "Nina!
Nina!" he cried again, the wonder breaking through his tone. "Do you
understand--do you _mean_ what you are looking? Do you love me
like--that?"

She tried to answer, but could not, though a little smile quivered in
the corner of her mouth, and the dimple in her cheek was softly
visible. Then she looked up again through her tears. A radiance
indescribable lit the man's face, making his rugged features
beautiful--then swiftly he stooped and gathered her to his heart.

THE END

* * * * *