y_ important to tell you," says
Miss Peyton, earnestly. This time she looks at her long black gloves,
not at him, and makes a desperate effort to button an already obedient
little bit of ivory.

They have turned into the orchard, now bereft of blossom, and are
strolling carelessly along one of its side-paths. The earth is looking
brown, the trees bare; for Autumn--greedy season--has stretched its
hand "to reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."

"Are you listening to me?" asks she, presently, seeing he makes no
response to her first move.

"Intently." He has not the very faintest idea of her meaning, so
speaks in a tone light and half amused, that leads her to betray her
secret sooner than otherwise she might have done. "Is it an honest
mystery," he says, carelessly, "or a common ghost story, or a state
secret? Break it to me gently."

"There is nothing to break," says Clarissa, softly. Then she looks
down at the strawberry borders at her side,--now brown and aged,--and
then says, in a very low tone, "I am going to be married!"

There is a dead silence. Sir James says nothing. He walks on beside
her with an unfaltering footstep, his head erect as ever, his hands
clasped in their old attitude behind his back. The sun is shining;
some birds are warbling faintly (as though under protest) in some
neighboring thicket; yet, I think Scrope neither sees the sun, nor
heeds the birds, nor knows for the moment that life flows within him,
after that little, low-toned speech of hers.

Then he awakes from his stupor, and, rousing himself, says, huskily,
yet with a certain amount of self-possession that deceives her,--

"You were saying----?"

"Only that I am going to be married," repeats Clarissa, in a somewhat
changed tone. The nervousness had gone out of it, and the natural
hesitation; she is speaking now quite composedly and clearly, as if
some surprise betrays itself in her voice.

Scrope is aware that his heart is beating madly. He has stopped, and
is leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree, facing Clarissa, who is
standing in the middle of the path. His face is ashen gray, but his
manner is quite calm.

"Who is it?" he asks, presently, very slowly.

"Mr. Branscombe,"--coldly.

"Dorian?"

"No. Horace."

"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.

It is the last straw.

"And why?" demands she, angrily. She is feeling wounded, disappointed
at his reception of her news; and now the cl