so absorbed Henderson that
after they had reached the city he had walked some blocks towards his
lodging before he recalled his promise about the message. On his
table he found a note from Carmen bidding him to dinner informally--an
invitation which he had no difficulty in declining on account of a
previous engagement. And then he went to his club, and passed a cheerful
evening. Why not? There was nothing melancholy about the young fellows
in the smoking-room, who liked a good story and the latest gossip, and
were attracted to the society of Henderson, who was open-handed and full
of animal spirits, and above all had a reputation for success, and for
being on the inside of affairs. There is nowhere else so much wisdom and
such understanding of life as in a city club of young fellows, who have
their experience still, for the most part, before them. Henderson was
that night in great "force"--as the phrase is. His companions thought he
had made a lucky turn, and he did not tell them that he had won the love
of the finest girl in the world, who was at that moment thinking of him
as fondly as he was thinking of her--but this was the subconsciousness
of his gayety. Late at night he wrote her a long letter--an honest
letter of love and admiration, which warmed into the tenderness of
devotion as it went on; a letter that she never parted with all her life
long; but he left a description of the loneliness of his evening without
her to her imagination.

It was for Margaret also a happy evening, but not a calm one, and not
gay. She was swept away by a flood of emotions. She wanted to be alone,
to think it over, every item of the short visit, every look, every tone.
Was it all true? The great change made her tremble: of the future she
dared scarcely think. She was restless, but not restless as before; she
could not be calm in such a great happiness. And then the wonder of it,
that he should choose her of all others--he who knew the world so well,
and must have known so many women. She followed him on his journey,
thinking what he was doing now, and now, and now. She would have given
the world to see him just for a moment, to look in his eyes and be sure
again, to have him say that little word once more: there was a kind of
pain in her heart, the separation was so cruel; it had been over
two hours now. More than once in the evening she ran down to the
sitting-room, where her aunt was pretending to be absorbed in a book, to
kiss her