be some shadow over her, and only those who knew her story knew what
it was--that it was the shadow of her absent love.

She was standing one day in the library alone, the same library where so
much of what had been eventful in her life had happened. The morning had
been a busy one; tenants, agents, business people of all kinds had been
there, and Pauline felt tired.

Darrell Court, the grand inheritance she had loved and in some measure
longed for, was hers; she was richer than she had ever dreamed of being,
and, as she looked round on the treasures collected in the library, she
thought to herself with a sigh, "Of what avail are they, save to make
others happy?" She would have given them all to be by Vane's side, no
matter how great their poverty, no matter what they had to undergo
together; but now it seemed that this bright young love of hers was to
wither away, to be heard of no more.

So from the beautiful lips came a deep sigh; she was tired, wearied with
the work and incessant care that the management of her estates entailed.
She did not own it even to herself, but she longed for the presence of
the only being whom she loved.

She was bending over some beautiful japonicas--for, no matter how
depressed she might be, she always found solace in flowers--when she
heard the sound of a horse's rapid trot.

"Farmer Bowman back again," she said to herself, with a smile; "but I
must not give way to him."

She was so certain that it was her tiresome tenant that she did not even
turn her head when the door opened and some one entered the room--some
one who did not speak, but who went up to her with a beating heart, laid
one hand on her bowed head, and said:

"Pauline, my darling, you have no word of welcome for me?"

It was Vane. With a glad cry of welcome--a cry such as a lost child
gives when it reaches its mother's arms--the cry of a long-cherished,
trusting love--she turned and was clasped in his arms, her haven of
rest, her safe refuge, her earthly paradise, attained at last.

"At last!" she murmured.

But he spoke no word to her. His eyes were noting her increased beauty.
He kissed the sweet lips, the lovely face.

"My darling," he said, "I left you a beautiful girl, but I find you a
woman beautiful beyond all comparison. It has seemed to me an age since
I left you, and now I am never to go away again. Pauline, you will be
kind to me for the sake of my long, true, deep love? You will be my
wife as soon a