p the stairs like a hare. She had not run so fast
since she was a little child of ten. He heard her happy laugh, and the
closing of her door.

Then he unbarred the front entrance; and stepping out, stood in the
sunshine, on the path where he had seen his Fairy-land Princess arrive.

He stretched his arms over his head.

"Mine!" he said. "Mine, altogether! Oh, my God! At last, I have won the
Highest!"

Then he raced down the street to the beach; and five minutes later, in
the full strength of his vigorous manhood, he was swimming up the golden
path, towards the rising sun.

CHAPTER XIV

GOLDEN DAYS

The week which followed was one of ideal joy and holiday. Both knew,
instinctively, that no after days could ever be quite as these first
days. They were an experience which came not again, and must be realised
and enjoyed with whole-hearted completeness.

At first Jim Airth talked with determination of a special licence, and
pleaded for no delay. But Lady Ingleby, usually vague to a degree on all
questions of law or matters of business, fortunately felt doubtful as to
whether it would be wise to be married in a name other than her own; and,
though she might have solved the difficulty by at once revealing her
identity to Jim Airth, she was anxious to choose her own time and place
for this revelation, and had set her heart upon making it amid the
surroundings of her own beautiful home at Shenstone.

"You see, Jim," she urged, "I _have_ a few friends in town and at
Shenstone, who take an interest in my doings; and I could hardly reappear
among them married! Could I, Jim? It would seem such an unusual and
unexpected termination to a rest-cure. Wouldn't it, Jim?"

Jim Airth's big laugh brought Miss Susie to the window. It caused sad
waste of Susannah's time, that her window looked out on the honeysuckle
arbour.

"It might make quite a run on rest-cures," said Jim Airth.

"Ah, but they couldn't all meet _you_," said Myra; and the look he
received from those sweet eyes, atoned for the vague inaccuracy of the
rejoinder.

So they agreed to have one week of this free untrammelled life, before
returning to the world of those who knew them; and he promised to come
and see her in her own home, before taking the final steps which should
make her altogether his.

So they went gay walks along the cliffs in the breezy sunshine; and Myra,
clinging to Jim's arm, looked down from above upon their ledge.

They revisit