you really take me for
your sister now that you know everything--I mean all about Cecil and
myself?"

"Yes, Carol, and because I do know, because he as a man has told me
everything. I am going to marry you soon, and no man, no priest could
marry his sister to his friend with more hope for happiness than I shall
marry you and Rayburn."

He took hold of her left hand, and stretched out his hand to Rayburn and
said:

"Come now, sister and brother, as you are going to be!"

He took their two hands and joined them. Over the two hands he clasped
his own, and looking swiftly from one to the other he said:

"Afterwards I will say the words that I cannot speak here." And then,
with a sudden change of tone and manner which came as a quick surprise
to both Carol and Rayburn, he went on:

"Rayburn, this is my sister. Carol, Rayburn tells me that he wants to
marry you, and I suppose----"

"You needn't suppose anything at all, Vane. I've said yes already. If
you and Sir Arthur will only say yes too----"

Vane drew back from her, and looked round toward Sir Arthur and Dora.
Rayburn, having gone through the formalities of introduction which
Vane's tact had made necessary, held out his hand and they shook hands.

"It is rather unceremonious, Miss Maxwell," he said, addressing her for
the first time by a name that was not her own, "but----"

"But, my dear Carol, you are forgetting that you are hostess to-night,"
said Sir Arthur, "and I think there are two of our guests who have not
been, as one would say in Society, properly introduced."

"Oh, of course; I'm so sorry," said Carol. "Dora, forgive me. I know you
will. I was too happy just now to think of anything else. Mr. Ernshaw,
this is Dora. Dora, this is Mr. Ernshaw. I hope you will be very good
friends. That's a rather unconventional way of introduction, I must
say."

As the last words left her laughing lips, and she was looking
exquisitely dainty and desirable in a quietly magnificent costume which
had cost as much as many much advertised wedding dresses, Dora and
Ernshaw faced each other for the first time. She had seen him with Vane
at the ordination service in Worcester Cathedral, but they had never met
before under the sanction of social acquaintance.

She looked at him and he looked at her, and as their eyes met some
impulse in the soul of both made them hold out their hands as people do
not usually do when they are introduced in ordinary drawing-room style.
E