rs--"dear old Tims, why didn't
you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" asked Tims, grinning delightedly. Milly threw her arms
round her friend's neck and hid her happy tears and blushes between
Tims's ear and shoulder.

"Mr. Stewart--it seems too good to be true--he loves me, he really does.
He wants me to be his wife."

Most girls would have hugged and kissed Milly, and Tims did hug her, but
instead of kissing her, she banged and slapped her back and shoulders
hard all over, shaking the while with deep internal chuckles. It hurt,
but Milly did not mind, for it was sympathy. Presently she drew herself
away, and wiping her damp eyes, said, smiling shyly:

"He's never guessed how much I care about him. I'm so glad. He says he
doesn't wonder at my hesitation and talks about others more worthy to
love me. But you know there isn't any one except Mr. Toovey. Poor Mr.
Toovey! I do hope I haven't behaved very badly to him."

"Never mind Toovey," chuckled Tims. "Anyhow, Milly, I've got a good load
off my mind. I didn't half like having put that other girl into your
boots. However, you've come back, and everything's going to be all
right."

"All right!" breathed Milly. "Why, Tims, darling, I never thought any
one in the world could be half so happy as I am."

And Tims left Milly to write the answer for which Ian Stewart was so
anxiously waiting.

* * * * *

The engagement proceeded after the manner of engagements. No one was
surprised at it and every one was pleased. The little whirlpool of talk
that it created prevented Milly's ignorance of the events of the past
six or seven months from coming to the surface. She lay awake at night,
devising means of telling Ian about this strange blank in her life. But
she shrank from saying things that might make him suspect her of an
unsound mind. She had plainly been sane enough in her abnormal state,
and there was no doubt of her sanity now. She told him she had had since
the autumn, and still had, strange collapses of memory; and he said that
quite explained some peculiarities of her work. She tried to talk to him
about French experiments in hypnotism, and how it was said sometimes to
bring to light unsuspected sides of a personality. But he laughed at
hypnotism as a mixture of fraud and hysteria. So with many searchings of
heart, she dropped the subject.

She was staying at the Fletchers' and saw Ian every day. He was all that
she could wish as a lover