ning, so he found himself at liberty to spend an hour at Slumberleigh
Rectory on his way to the station, and by the advice of Mr. Alwynn went
into the garden, where the sound of the musical-box reached the ear, but
in faint echoes, and where Ruth presently joined him.

In his heart Dare was secretly afraid of Ruth; though, as he often told
himself, it was more than probable she was equally afraid of him. If
that was so, she controlled her feelings wonderfully, for as she came
to meet him, nothing could have been more frankly kind, more friendly,
or more composed than her manner towards him. He took her out-stretched
hand and kissed it. It was not quite the way in which he had pictured to
himself that they would meet; but if his imagination had taken a
somewhat bolder flight in her absence, he felt now, as she stood before
him, that it had taken that flight in vain. He kept her hand, and looked
intently at her. She did not change color, nor did that disappointing
friendliness leave her steady eyes.

"She does not love me," he said to himself. "It is strange, but she does
not. But the day will come."

"You are going to London, are you not?" asked Ruth, withdrawing her hand
at last; and after hearing a detailed account of his difficulties and
anxieties about money matters, and after taking an immense weight off
his mind by telling him that they would have no influence in causing her
to alter her decision, she sent him beaming and rejoicing on his way,
quite a different person to the victim of anxiety and depression who had
arrived at Slumberleigh an hour before.

Mrs. Alwynn was much annoyed at Dare's entire want of heart in leaving
the house without coming to see her, and during the remainder of the
morning she did not cease to comment on the differences that exist
between what people really are and what they seem to be, until, in her
satisfaction at recounting the accident to Evelyn Danvers, a new and
sympathetic listener, she fortunately forgot the slight put upon her
ankle earlier in the day. The complete enjoyment of her sufferings was,
however, destined to sustain a severe shock the following morning.

She and Ruth were reading their letters, Mrs. Alwynn, of course, giving
Ruth the benefit of the various statements respecting the weather which
her correspondents had confided to her, when Mr. Alwynn came in from the
study, an open letter in his hand. He was quite pink with pleasure.

"He has asked me to go and se