ly glad of it!"

"Why are you so very glad?"

"Because you are: it has made you very happy--you look so."

"I am excessively happy because you believe I am happy. Many people
don't: many people think I am disappointed. My own mother thinks so,
and yet she is a good woman. People will believe that you wish the
death of your dearest friend if he stands between you and material
good. It is horrible, and I have been courted and worshiped as the
rising sun;" and he laughed. "One can afford to laugh at it now, but
it was very sickening at the time. I can afford anything, Alice: I
believe I can even afford to marry, if you'll marry a hard-working man
instead of a duke."

"Oh, George," she said, "I have been so ashamed of that letter I
wrote."

"It was a wicked little letter," he said, "but I suppose it was the
truth at the time: say it is not true now."

"It is not true now," she repeated, "but I have not loved you very
dearly all the time; and if you had married I should have been very
happy if you had been happy. But oh," she said, and her eyes filled
with tears, "this is far better."

"You love me now?"

"Unutterably."

"I have loved you all the time, all the time. I should not have been
happy if I had heard of your marriage."

"Then how were you so cold and distant the day we stuck on the moor?"

"Because it was excessively cold weather: I was not going to warm
myself up to be frozen again. I have never been in delicate health,
but I can't stand heats and chills."

"I do believe you are not a bit wiser than I am. I hear the carriage:
that's Lady Arthur come back. How surprised she will be!"

"I am not so sure of that," George said. "I'll go and meet her."

When he appeared Lady Arthur shook hands tranquilly and said, "How do
you do?"

"Very well," he said. "I have been testing the value of certain
documents you sent me, and find they are worth their weight in gold."

She looked in his face.

"Alice is mine," he said, "and we are going to Bashan for our
wedding-tour. If you'll seize the opportunity of our escort, you may
hunt up Og's bed."

"Thank you," she said: "I fear I should be _de trop_."

"Not a bit; but even if you were a great nuisance, we are in the humor
to put up with anything."

"I'll think of it. I have never traveled in the character of a
nuisance yet--at least, so far as I know--and it would be a new
sensation: that is a great inducement."

Lady Arthur rushed to Miss Adamson's ro