understand,
on account of old age."

"Then that makes it clear," Angus declared. "This Mr. Bulteel is
probably a man who worked with him in the same office--perhaps the only
link he had with his past life. I think you'll find that's the way it
will turn out. But I hate to think of your travelling to London all
alone!--for the first time in your life, too!"

"Oh well, that doesn't matter much!" she said, cheerfully,--"Now that
you know where I am going, it's all right. You forget, Angus!--I'm quite
old enough to take care of myself. How many times must I remind you that
you are engaged to be married to an old maid of thirty-five? You treat
me as if I were quite a young girl!"

"So I do--and so I will!" and his eyes rested upon her with a proud look
of admiration. "For you _are_ young, Mary--young in your heart and soul
and nature--younger than any so-called young girl I ever met, and
twenty times more beautiful. So there!"

She smiled gravely.

"You are easily satisfied, Angus," she said--"But the world will not
agree with you in your ideas of me. And when you become a famous
man----"

"If I become a famous man----" he interrupted.

"No--not 'if'--I say 'when,'" she repeated. "When you become a famous
man, people will say, 'what a pity he did not marry some one younger and
more suited to his position----"

She could speak no more, for Angus silenced her with a kiss.

"Yes, what a pity it will be!" he echoed. "What a pity! When other men,
less fortunate, see that I have won a beautiful and loving wife, whose
heart is all my own,--who is pure and true as the sun in heaven,--'what
a pity,' they will say, 'that we are not so lucky!' That's what the talk
will be, Mary! For there's no man on earth who does not crave to be
loved for himself alone--a selfish wish, perhaps--but it's implanted in
every son of Adam. And a man's life is always more or less spoilt by
lack of the love he needs."

She put her arms round his neck, and her true eyes looked straightly
into his own.

"Your life will not be spoilt that way, dear!" she said. "Trust me for
that!"

"Do I not know it!" he answered, passionately. "And would I not lose the
whole world, with all its chances of fame and fortune, rather than lose
_you_!"

And in their mutual exchange of tenderness and confidence they forgot
all save

"The time and place
And the loved one all together!"

It was a perfect summer's morning when Mary, for the first time in