ce, and proposed by moonlight, as all my wife's friends
know, and probably her maid. But, seriously, Dick, you are not making
progress, as you say yourself."

"Well!" rather sullenly.

"Well, on-lookers see most of the game. Miss West may--I don't say she
is--but if things go on as they are for another week she may become
slightly bored. That was why I joined you at supper. She had had, for
the time, enough."

"Of me?" said Dick, reddening under his tan.

"Just so. It is a matter of no importance after marriage, but it should
be avoided beforehand. Are you really in earnest about this?"

Dick delivered himself slowly and deliberately of certain platitudes.

"Well, I hope I shall hear you say all that again some day in a
condensed form before a clergyman. In the meanwhile--"

"In the meanwhile I had better clear out."

"Yes; I don't enjoy saying so in the presence of my own galantine and
mayonnaise, but that is it. Go, and--come back."

"If you have a Bradshaw," said Dick, "I'll look out my train now. I
think there is an express to London about seven in the morning, if you
can send me to the station."

"But the post only comes in at eight."

"Well, you can send my letters after me."

"I dare say I can, my diplomatist. But you are not going to leave till
the post has arrived, when you will receive business letters requiring
your immediate presence in London. You are not going to let a woman know
that you leave on her account."

"You are very sharp, Cackles," said Dick, drearily. "And I'll take a
leaf out of your book and lie, if you think it is the right thing. But I
expect she will know very well that the same business which took me to
that infernal temperance meeting has taken me to London."

Rachel was vaguely relieved when Dick went off next morning. She was
not, as a rule, oppressed by the attentions she received from young men,
which in due season became "marked," and then resulted in proposals
neatly or clumsily expressed. But she was disturbed when she thought of
Dick, and his departure was like the removal of a weight, not a heavy,
but still a perceptible one. For Rachel was aware that Dick was in
deadly earnest, and that his love was growing steadily, almost
unconsciously, was accumulating like snow, flake by flake, upon a
mountain-side. Some day, perhaps not for a long time, but some day,
there would be an avalanche, and, in his own language, she "would be in
it."

CHAPTER XX

Si