WHOM WILL HE MARRY?

Had Lilian Rosenberg been able to see the effect of her conversation
upon Shiel after she had left him, she would have been disappointed.
He had, prior to this interview with Lilian Rosenberg, as he told her,
made up his mind to abandon all idea of marrying Gladys Martin; and
there is a possibility that had her name not been mentioned, had she
not been recalled so vividly to his mind, he would have adhered to
that resolution--at all events so long as he refrained from seeing
her. But such is human nature--or at least man's nature--that directly
Lilian Rosenberg had left him, Shiel's love for Gladys burst out with
such wild, invigorated force that it swept reason and everything else
before it. Gladys! He could think of nothing else! Every detail in her
appearance, every word she had spoken, came back to him with
exaggerated intensity. Her beauty was sublime. There was no one like
her, no one that could inspire him with such a sense of ideality, no
one that could lead him on to such dizzy heights of greatness. It was
all nonsense to say, as Lilian Rosenberg had said, there were just as
many good fish in the sea as had ever come out of it--there was only
one Gladys. Hamar should never marry her--he would marry her himself.
She must be told at once of Hamar's infamous designs. A mad desire to
see her came over him, and disregardful of the doctor's orders that he
should remain in bed several more days, he got up, and dressing as
fast as his weak condition would allow him, took a taxi and drove to
Waterloo.

On reaching the Cottage, at Kew, he found Gladys at home, and to his
great joy, alone.

There is nothing that appeals to a woman more than a sick man, and
Shiel, in coming to Gladys in his present condition, had unwittingly
played a trump card. Had he appeared well and strong she would
probably have received him none too cordially--for she was very tired
of men just then; but the moment her eyes alighted on his thin cheeks
and she saw the dark rings under his eyes, pity conquered. This man at
least was not to blame--he was not of the same pattern as other men,
he was not like so many men whose adulations had grown fulsome to her,
and--he was totally unlike Hamar.

In very sympathetic tones she inquired how he was, and on learning
that he had been sufficiently ill to be kept in bed, asked why he had
not told her.

"Aunty and I would have called to see you," she said, "and brought you
jelly