She dare not rush forth to greet him. Perhaps he had changed
his mind by this time, and was sorry he had ever asked her to marry him.
Perhaps he thought he was being hustled into a marriage. He had been
told that he was to wait at least a year. And now, all in a moment, he
was sent off to get a special licence. How could she be quite sure that
he liked this kind of treatment?

If there is any faith to be placed in the human countenance, Mr. Hammond
was in no wise an unwilling bridegroom; for his face teamed with happy
light as he came into the room presently, followed by an elderly man
with grey hair and whiskers, and in a strictly professional frock coat,
whom the butler announced as Mr. Dorncliffe. Lady Maulevrier looked
startled, somewhat offended even at this intrusion, and she gave Mr.
Dorncliffe a very haughty salutation, which was almost more crushing
than no salutation at all.

Mary stood up by her grandmother's sofa, and looked rather frightened.

'Dear Lady Maulevrier,' said Hammond, 'I ventured to telegraph to my
lawyer to meet me at York last night, and come on here with me this
morning. He has prepared a settlement, which I should like you to hear
him read, and which he will explain to you, if necessary, while Molly
and I go for a stroll in the grounds.'

He had never called her Molly before. He put his arm round her with a
proud air of possession, even under her grandmother's eyes. And she
nestled close up to his side, forgetting everything but the delight of
belonging to him.

They went downstairs, and through the billiard room to the terrace, and
from the terrace to the tennis lawn, where John Hammond sat reading
Heine nearly a year ago, just before he proposed to Lesbia.

'Do you remember that day?' asked Mary, looking at him, solemnly.

'I remember every day and every hour we have spent together since I began
to love you,' answered Hammond.

'Ah, but this was before you began to love me,' said Mary, with a
piteous little grimace. 'This was while you were loving Lesbia as hard
as ever you could. Don't you remember the day you proposed to her--a
lovely summer day like this, the lake just as blue, the sun shining upon
Fairfield just as it is shining now, and you sat there reading
Heine--those sweet, sweet verses, that seemed made of sighs and tears;
and every now and then you paused and looked up at Lesbia, and there was
more love in your eyes than in all Heine's poetry, though that brims
over wi