ith outward
calm.

When within his room he strode to and fro, his arms folded across his
breast. For some time he could not have composed himself to sit down or
go to rest. This very night, then, he was to behold her face to face;
in but a few hours he would stand before her bowing, and rise from his
obeisance to look into the great eyes which had followed him so
long--ay, so much longer than he had truly understood. What should he
read there--what thought which might answer to his own? It had been his
plan to go to my Lord Twemlow and ask that he might be formally
presented to his fair kinswoman and her parent. Knowing his mind, he
was no schoolboy who would trust to chance, but would move directly and
with dignity towards the object he desired. The representatives of her
family would receive him, and 'twas for himself to do the rest. But
now he need go to no man to ask to be led to her presence. The mere
chance of Fortune would lead him there. 'Twas strange how it had ever
been so--that Fate's self had seemed to work to this end.

The chamber was a huge one and he had paced its length many times
before he stopped and stood in deep thought.

"'Tis sure because of this," he said, "that I have so little doubt.
There lies scarce a shadow yet in my mind. 'Tis as if Nature had so
ordained it before I woke to life, and I but go to obey her law."

His eye had fallen upon a long mirror standing near, but he did not see
what was reflected there, and gazed through and beyond it as if at
another thing. And yet the image before him was one which might have
removed doubt of himself from any man's heart, it being of such
gracious height and manly strength, and, with its beauteous leonine eye
and brow, its high bearing, and the richness of its apparel, so noble a
picture.

He turned away unseeing, with a smile and half a sigh of deep and
tender passion. "May I ride home," he said, "as Hugh de Mertoun
did--four hundred years ago!"

When they arrived at their entertainer's house the festivities were at
full; brilliant light shone from every window and streamed from the
wide entrance in a flood, coaches rolled up the avenue and waited for
place before the door, from within strains of music floated out to the
darkness of the night, and as the steps were mounted each arrival
caught glimpses of the gay scene within: gentlemen in velvet and
brocade and ladies attired in all the rich hues of a bed of
flowers--crimson, yellow, white