amy; of his kindness, of his favour with her father and of his love
for herself.

She did not now feel as she had felt in his study before she fell
asleep; she did not even define the feeling which had then made her
tears flow; and she understood, with the memory of Dick's kisses on her
face, that Randal was not wounded as Dick would have been in losing her.

She had not wronged Randal, nor had she any sense of wrong-doing; for to
love Dick was a natural thing to do--and a wise thing. It was even a
praiseworthy deed: for that this wonderful Dick of all men should go
without any smallest thing which he desired, would have been wicked
indeed.

The sting was this: Randal did not yet know that she was Dick's, nor
Dick that Randal would have had her his own. And she believed that it
would hurt Randal less in the end to learn the tremendous news from her
mouth than from her father's, Dick's or Lady Elizabeth's; and from Lady
Elizabeth she knew she could not keep it long, having a suspicion, even,
that she knew it already.

She must see Randal before Dick should come to her. She must tell Randal
the most wonderful and most inevitable thing of that terrible and
glorious yesterday. And Randal must decide whether Dick was to know what
Randal had asked and offered. And if Dick was to know, Randal must
decide by whom, and when.

If Randal wished it hidden, she could never tell it--not even to Dick.

For Amaryllis, even before she had "put her hair up," had learned to
hate the woman who tries to hide her nakedness with a belt of scalps.

As these thoughts ran through her head, Amaryllis frowned between her
eyebrows.

"A fly in the ointment, after all?" asked Lady Elizabeth, smiling so
that one knew there was none in hers.

"Only something I remembered. I want----"

"Won't ask, shan't have," said Lady Elizabeth.

"Will Sir Randal Bellamy be here to lunch?" asked the girl.

"I hope so, my dear. He's with Dick--or was--sitting on the bed to keep
him down till the doctor came. He's like a hen with one chick over that
brother of his."

And Lady Elizabeth Bruffin laughed.

"I think it's--it's beautiful," said Amaryllis, with a shade of
indignation in her voice.

"Yes--quite. That's why I laughed."

"I know," replied the girl, unwrinkling her forehead. "I often want to
laugh for that." And then, after a moment's pause, she added: "Please, I
want to speak to Sir Randal for a moment, before lunch."

"You shall. Heroines