exhaustion; it was the yielding of one too tired to argue.

"Very well," she breathed, "go now, and I will ask her. Come this evening. You will excuse—"

She made a vague motion. The colonel pitied her tremendously in a blind way. Was it all this to lose a daughter? How she loved her!

"Perhaps to-morrow morning," he suggested, but she shook her head vehemently.

"No, to-night, to-night!" she cried. "Lady will know directly. Come tonight!"

He went out a little depressed. Already a tiny cloud hung between them. Suppose their pleasant waters had been troubled for worse than nothing? Suddenly his case appeared hopeless to him. What folly—a man of his years, and that fresh young creature with all her life before her! He wondered that he could have dreamed of it; he wished the evening over and the foolish mistake forgiven.

His sister was full of plans and dates, and her talk covered his almost absolute silence. After dinner she retired again into packing, and he strode through the dusk to the cottage; his had not been a training that seeks to delay the inevitable.

The two women sat, as usual at this hour, on the porch. Their white gowns shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-vine. He halted at the steps and took off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore, standing straight and tall before them.

Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair; the faintest possible gesture indicated her daughter, who had risen and stood beside her.

"Colonel Driscoll," she said in a low, uneven voice, "my daughter wishes me to say to you that she appreciates deeply the honor you do her, and that if you wish it she will be your wife. She—she is sure she will be happy."

The colonel felt his heart leap up and hit heavily against his chest. Was it possible? A great gratitude and pride glowed softly through him. He walked nearly up the steps and stood just below her, lifting her hand to his lips.

"My dear, dear child," he said slowly, "you give me too much, but you must not measure my thankfulness for the gift by my deserts. Whatever a man can do to make you and your mother happy shall be done so long as I live."

She smiled gravely into his eyes and bowed her head slightly; like all her little motions, it had the effect of a graceful ceremony. Then, slipping loose her hand, she seated herself on a low stool beside her mother's chair, leaning against her knee. Her sweet silence charmed him.

He took his accustomed seat, and they sat quietly, while the breeze puffed little gusts of honeysuckle across their faces. Occasional neighbors greeted them, strolling past; the newly watered lawns all along the street sent up a fresh turfy odor; now and then a bird chirped drowsily. He felt deliriously intimate, peacefully at home. A fine, subtle sense of bien-être penetrated his whole soul.

When he rose to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's hand it was as cold as stone.

Through the long pleasant weeks of the summer they talked and laughed and drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless quiet of the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that enchanted the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with them seemed incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she shot him a strange glance.

"But this is all wrong," she said abruptly. "What will you do when I am gone in the winter?"

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Gone where, when, how?"

"My dear colonel," she said lightly, but with an obvious effort, "do you imagine that I cannot leave you a honeymoon, in spite of my doting parenthood? I plan to spend the latter part of the winter in New York with friends. Perhaps by spring—"

"My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd! How cruel of you! What will Lady do? What shall I do? She has never been separated from you in her life. Does she