know of this?"

"No; I shall tell her soon. As for what she will do—she will have her husband. If that is not enough for her, she should not marry the man who cannot—"

She stopped suddenly and controlled with great effort a rising emotion almost too strong for her. Again a deep, inexplicable sympathy welled up in him. He longed to comfort her, to give her everything she wanted. He blamed himself and Jane for all the trouble they were causing her.

That afternoon she kept in her room, and he and his fiancée drank their tea together alone. He was worried by the news of the morning, dissatisfied out of all proportion, vexed that so sensible and natural a proposition should leave him so uneasy and disappointed. He had meant the smooth, quiet life to go on without a break, and now the new relation must change everything.

He glanced at Jane, a little irritated that she should not perceive his mood and exorcise it. But she had not her mother's marvellous susceptibility. She drank her tea in serene silence. He made a few haphazard remarks, hoping to lose in conversation the cloud that threatened his evening; but she only assented tranquilly and watched the changing colors of the early sunset.

"Have you made a vow to agree with everything I say?" he asked finally, half laughing, half in earnest.

"Not at all," she replied placidly, "but you surely do not want an argument?"

"Oh, no," he answered her, vexed at himself.

"What do you think of Mrs. ———'s novel?" he suggested, as the pages, fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his attention.

"Mother is reading it, not I," she returned indifferently. "I don't care very much for the new novels."

Involuntarily he turned as if to catch her mother's criticism of the book: light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless satire that always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed impatiently; was it possible he was a little bored?

A quick step sounded on the gravel walk, a swish of skirts.

"It is Louise Morris," she said, "I'll meet her at the gate."

After a short conference she returned.

"Will you excuse me, please?" she said, quite eagerly for her. "Mother will be down soon, anyway, I am sure. Louise's brother is back; he has been away in the West for six years. Mother will be delighted—she was always so fond of Jack. Louise is making a little surprise for him. He must be quite grown up now. I'll go and tell mother."

A moment later and she was gone. Mrs. Leroy took her place in the window, and imperceptibly under her gentle influence the cloud faded from his horizon; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago. At her suggestion he dined there, and found himself, as always when with his hostess, at his best. He felt that there was no hypocrisy in her interest in his ideas, and the ease with which he expressed them astonished him even while he delighted in it. Why could he not talk so with Jane? It occurred to him suddenly that it was because Jane herself talked rarely. She was, like him, a listener, for the most part. His mind, unusually alert and sensitive to-night, looked ahead to the happy winter evenings he had grown to count on so, and when, with an effort, he detached this third figure from the group to be so closely allied after Christmas-tide—the date fixed for the wedding—he perceived that there was a great gap in the picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly gone. All the tenderness in the world could not disguise that flash of foresight.

He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light, staring into the late September fire on the hearth.

In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. The older woman was much alone—variable as an April day, now merry and caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more closely, sat for