go out and see the sight. If there was anything worth the trouble of
looking at, probably it could be seen from the hotel windows.

"But what about _you_, Lady Peggy?" Tony asked.

"I'd love to go with you," I answered.

I put on a long cloak, the one I had worn to see "our" battery off at
Fort Alvarado railway station, and Tony and I sallied forth together. It
was not till we were safely in the street that he told me we were early
for the procession. "Never mind," said I. "It's lovely to be out in the
blue night. We'll just stroll through quiet streets, where there won't
be a crowd to bother us, until it's time to go and gaze at the torches."

"There's a nice little sort of park," he suggested, "not too far away.
How would you like to walk there?"

I said I would like it, and as our "little sort of" park wasn't the park
whence the procession would start, we had it practically to ourselves.
We found an empty seat and sat down side by side like a Tommy Atkins and
his "girl" in Kensington Gardens.

The first thing that Tony did when we were anchored together there was
to propose again, after an apology. I let him get it over, and then
played the next pawn in my game.

CHAPTER XI

"Tony dear," I said softly, when he had finished, "I like you better
than any man I know, except one; and that one thinks of me as his good
little sister, so you needn't be afraid of _his_ interference.
But--there's something that _does_ interfere!"

"What is it?" he eagerly wanted to know.

"It is--that you don't really love me."

He stared at me through the deepening dusk. "Don't love you? Good Lord,
Lady Peggy, I'm a fool about you! Any dough-head can see that."

"Ah, but I'm not a dough-head. I know you don't love me. You proved that
last night."

"For the life of me, I can't think what you mean. I I told you I'd try
to be your friend, but you knew what that meant! Don't keep me in
suspense."

"You've hurt my feelings dreadfully. I've been brooding over it all
day."

"I--hurt your feelings? Why, you ought to know I wouldn't for the
world----"

"But you did. You refused to trust me. There can be no love without
trust."

"I'd trust you with my life. I can't to save myself guess what you're
driving at----" He stopped suddenly. My meaning had dawned on him in
that instant.

"Now you've guessed, haven't you?" I asked, when for a few seconds,
which I counted with heartbeats, he had sat tensely silent.

"Maybe I ha