ied after
Christmas-tide--the date fixed for the wedding--he perceived that there
was a great gap in the picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly
gone. All the tenderness in the world could not disguise that flash of
foresight.

He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and
less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed
young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light,
staring into the late September fire on the hearth.

In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three.
The older woman was much alone--variable as an April day, now merry and
caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more
closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, threw strange glances at
her betrothed that would have startled him, so different were they
from her old, steady regard, had not his now troubled sense of some
impalpable mist that wrapped them all grown stronger every day. He
avoided sitting alone with her, wondering sometimes at the ease
with which such tete-a-tetes were dispensed with. Then, struck with
apprehension at his seeming neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate
attentions toward her, courtly thoughtfulness of her tastes, beautiful
gifts that provoked from her, in turn, all the little intimacies and
tender friendliness of their earlier intercourse.

At one of these tiny crises of mutual restoration, she, sitting alone
with him in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her eyes and looked
steadily at him.

"You care for me, then, very much?" she said earnestly. "You--you would
miss--if things were different? You really count on--on--our marriage?
Are you happy?"

A great remorse rose in him. Poor child--poor, young, unknowing
creature, that, after all, was only twenty-two! She felt it, then, the
strange mist that seemed to muffle his words and actions, to hold him
back. And she had given him so much!

He took her hands and drew her to him.

"My dear, dear child," he said gently, "forgive a selfish middle-aged
bachelor if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest
girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than
I have ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more
sensible of all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of
the poets you read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me.
I am a plain, unromantic person, who takes and leav