u. My sweet! My sweet!"

The girl made an effort to withdraw her hands. What had happened?
What did it mean?

"Oh, no!" she stammered. "It is a mistake--I do not know---- You are
mistaking me for somebody else. I----"

He held her hands closer, closer, until they were pressed against his
breast.

"Mistake?" he echoed with a little sound--it was hardly a laugh--of
triumph and content.

"Mistake! Love makes no mistake!" and all the while his eyes burnt
into hers with an intensity of passion and of longing.

"But yes--" she faltered. It was difficult to find words against the
ardour of his gaze. "Yes, I am Philippa Harford. I must have mistaken
the room. Believe me, I am sorry----"

"Philippa Harford!" and again that little sound broke from him, half
sob, half sigh, and clearly indicative of infinite joy, a joy too deep
to be expressed in words. "My Phil!--as if I should not know! Sun in
my shadows--light in my darkness--darkness which surrounded and
overwhelmed, and in which I groped in vain, and only clung to you."

He spoke her name as if the very repetition of it told the sum of his
content. "Phil!--and I not know!--and my love's violets!" Releasing
one hand he touched the flowers she wore. "And the little heart--the
same! Your heart and mine!"

He led her, compelled against her will, unresisting to a sofa.
Philippa sank upon it overwhelmed and almost nerveless under the stress
of his emotion. He placed himself beside her, half sitting, half
kneeling at her feet.

"I do not know--was it yesterday I saw you, cool and sweet in your soft
primrose gown? or was it long ago before the shadows fell? Ah,
love--your eyes! your hair! And always in the darkness the sound of
your voice--the touch of your dear hand."

Philippa felt her senses reeling. With an effort she tore her eyes
from his and gazed round the room. What did it mean? What dream was
it? Was she waking or sleeping?

Beside the sofa stood a table, and on it an easel supporting a picture
of--oh no, it could not be herself!

She drew one hand--the other was still tightly clasped in his--across
her eyes as if to brush away a veil of unreality which seemed to hang
over everything, and looked again. But no, there was no mistaking
it--the dark hair drawn loosely back from the brow--her hair--her face
as she saw it daily in her mirror--even her dress; a touch of pale
yellow lightly indicated the folds of soft lace--the bunch of vio