ight, for, as Lord
Shotover says, whatever his misfortunes may be, Richard Calmady is a
gentleman.--Ah! I hope you are going to be very happy. Good-bye."

Decies' black head went down over her hand, and he kissed it
impulsively.

"Good-bye," he said, the words catching a little in his throat. "When
the time comes, may you find the man to love you as you deserve--though
I doubt if there's such a man living, or dead either, for that matter!
God bless you."

Some half-hour later Honoria stood among the holland-shrouded furniture
in Lady Calmady's sitting-room in Lowndes Square. The period of exalted
feeling, of the conviction of successful attainment, was over, and her
heart beat somewhat painfully. For she had had time, by now, to realise
the surprising audacity of her own proceedings. Lord Shotover's parley
with Richard Calmady's man-servant, on the door-step, had brought that
home to her, placing what had seemed obvious, as a course of action to
her fervid imagination, in quite a new light.--Sir Richard Calmady was
at home? He was still up?--To that, yes. Would he see Lady Constance
Quayle upon urgent business?--To that again, yes--after a rather
lengthy delay, while the valet, inscrutable, yet evidently highly
critical, made inquiries.--The trees in the square had whispered
together uncomfortably, while the two young ladies waited in the
carriage. And Lord Shotover's shadow, which had usually, very surely,
nothing in the least portentous about it, lay queerly, three ways at
once, in varying degrees of density, across the gray pavement in the
conflicting gas and moonlight.

And now, as she stood among the shrouded furniture, which appeared
oddly improbable in shape seen in the flickering of two hastily lighted
candles, Honoria could hear Shotover walking back and forth, patiently,
on that same gray pavement outside. She was overstrained by the
emotions and events of the past hours. Small matters compelled her
attention. The creaking of a board, the rustle of a curtain, the
silence even of this large, but half-inhabited, house, were to her big
with suggestion, disquietingly replete with possible meaning, of
exaggerated importance to her anxiously listening ears.

Lord Shotover had stopped walking. He was talking to the coachman.
Honoria entertained a conviction that, in the overflowing of his good
nature, he talked--sooner or later--to every soul whom he met. And she
derived almost childish comfort from the knowled