. He praised you highly."

"And--you may permit me one question--does this danger come from
Northmour?" I asked.

"From Mr. Northmour?" she cried. "Oh, no, he stays with us to share it."

"While you propose that I should run away?" I said. "You do not rate me
very high."

"Why should you stay?" she asked. "You are no friend of ours."

I know not what came over me, for I had not been conscious of a similar
weakness since I was a child, but I was so mortified by this retort that
my eyes pricked and filled with tears, as I continued to gaze upon her
face.

"No, no," she said, in a changed voice; "I did not mean the words
unkindly."

"It was I who offended," I said; and I held out my hand with a look of
appeal that somehow touched her, for she gave me hers at once, and even
eagerly. I held it for awhile in mine, and gazed into her eyes. It was she
who first tore her hand away, and, forgetting all about her request and
the promise she had sought to extort, ran at the top of her speed, and
without turning, till she was out of sight. And then I knew that I loved
her, and thought in my glad heart that she--she herself--was not
indifferent to my suit. Many a time she has denied it in after days, but
it was with a smiling and not a serious denial. For my part, I am sure our
hands would not have lain so closely in each other if she had not begun to
melt to me already. And, when all is said, it is no great contention,
since, by her own avowal, she began to love me on the morrow.

And yet on the morrow very little took place. She came and called me down
as on the day before, upbraided me for lingering at Graden, and, when she
found I was still obdurate, began to ask me more particularly as to my
arrival. I told her by what series of accidents I had come to witness
their disembarkation, and how I had determined to remain, partly from the
interest which had been awakened in me by Northmour's guests, and partly
because of his own murderous attack. As to the former, I fear I was
disingenuous, and led her to regard herself as having been an attraction
to me from the first moment that I saw her on the links. It relieves my
heart to make this confession even now, when my wife is with God, and
already knows all things, and the honesty of my purpose even in this; for
while she lived, although it often pricked my conscience, I had never the
hardihood to undeceive her. Even a little secret, in such a married life
as ours, is like the