rn woman"--would no doubt ponder ere she
tried to read further; she would analyze her feelings, her thoughts,
her sensations; she would revel over her own heartache and delight in
her own soul agony. But simple-minded, conventional Louisa did none of
these things. She neither ruffled her hair, nor dressed in ill-made
serge clothes; her dress was perfect and her hand exquisitely gloved.
She did nothing out of the way; she only loved one man altogether
beyond herself, and she understood his passionate love for her, and
all that troubled him in this world in which they both lived.

"I love that barcarolle, don't you?" she said after awhile.

"I did not hear it," he replied.

"Luke."

"It's no use, Lou," he said under his breath. "You must despise me for
being a drivelling fool, but I have neither eyes nor ears now. I would
give all I have in the world to lie down there on the floor now before
you and to kiss the soles of your feet."

"How could I despise you, Luke, for that?"

"Put your hand on my knee, just for a moment, Lou. I think I shall go
mad if I don't feel your touch."

She did as he asked her, and he was silent until the last note of the
barcarolle died away in a softly murmured breath.

"What a cowardly wretch I am," he said under cover of the wave of
enthusiastic applause which effectually covered the sound of his voice
to all ears save hers. "I think I would sell my soul for a touch of
your hand, and all the while I know that with every word I am playing
the part of a coward. If Colonel Harris heard me he would give me a
sound thrashing. A dog whip is what I deserve."

"I have told you," she rejoined simply, "that father does not wish our
engagement to be broken off. He sticks to your cause and will do so
through thick and thin. He still believes that this Philip is an
impostor, and thinks that Lord Radclyffe has taken leave of his
senses."

She spoke quite quietly, matter-of-factly now, pulling, by her serene
calm, Luke's soul back from the realms of turbulent sensations to the
prosy facts of to-day. And he--in answer to her mute dictate and with
a movement wholly instinctive and mechanical--drew himself upright,
and passed his hand over his ruffled hair, and the jeopardized
immaculateness of shirt front and cuffs.

"Philip de Mountford," he said simply, "is no impostor, Lou. He has
been perfectly straightforward; and Mr. Dobson for one, who has seen
all his papers, thinks that there is no doubt