es a great deal for
granted--I thought you knew that. But you must never doubt--" He paused
a moment, and for the first time she interrupted him nervously.

"I never will--Clarence," she said almost solemnly; and it struck him
for the first time that she had never called him by his name before. He
leaned over her, and as in one of her rare concessions she lifted her
face up to him, he bent lower than her forehead; what compelled him to
kiss her soft cheek rather than her lips he did not know.

Unexpected business summoned him to New York for a fortnight the next
day, and the great city drew him irresistibly into its noisy maelstrom.
The current of his thoughts changed absolutely. Old friends and new took
up his leisure. His affairs, as they grew more pressing, woke in him
a keen delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he shook hands
triumphantly with his lawyer after a well-earned victory he felt years
younger. He decided that he had moped too long in the country: "We must
move into town this season," he said to himself.

He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to
see them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door:
the ladies had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an
invitation for him, so he would not intrude if he followed.

Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music
poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made
the grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on
the piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful
in pale blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed
with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly
recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a
glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose
fine poise he could not mistake.

A young man passed him with a filmy crepe shawl he knew well. The
colonel stepped along with him.

"You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?"

"Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little."

"Let me relieve you of it," and he walked alone into the garden with the
softly scented cobweb over his arm.

She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door.
As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white
shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his
personality, and met his eyes full. He looked strai