oward had bargained,
Lady Fitzharford opened the door of the inner room softly, so softly,
that seeing Miss Heron in the arms of a stalwart young man, and
apparently quite content to be there, her ladyship discreetly closed
the door again, and going round by the inner room found Mr. Howard
seated on the stairs. She looked at him with amazement, well-nigh
bewilderment.

"Are you mad?" she exclaimed, in a whisper.

Howard smiled at her blandly.

"No," he said, with a backward jerk of his head, "but they are. I'm
told it's a delicious kind of madness worth all your sanity. Do not let
us disturb them. Come and sit down beside me until the time is up," he
glanced at his watch; "they have still three minutes."

With a suppressed laugh she sat down beside him.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she said, "to play me such a
trick. But, oh, how happy they look!"

"I am ashamed of myself, my dear, lady," he said; "but I should have
been more ashamed of myself if I hadn't. Do they look happy? We will go
in and see presently. It will be my great reward. But I should like to
give them another five minutes, dear lady, for I assure you, on my word
of honour, that I was once young myself."

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Love's Cost, by Charles Garvice

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT LOVE'S COST ***

***** This file should be named 10379.txt or 10379.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/3/7/10379/

Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, r