efore that time in the
spring when my mother intimated to me that Nelly was ready to fulfil her
engagement. I never considered it an engagement. I was actually about to
make things clear when that intimation was given to me. Then, I was led
to believe that Nelly had taken it as binding. What could I do only go
on? If Nelly cared for me--I confess that I ought to have known it to be
an unlikely thing--then my great concern in life was that Nelly should
not suffer. It was all a pretty bad mistake, but I am glad it has gone
no further."

He heard something like a sigh, so faint that he could be hardly sure he
heard it. It was, in reality, Mary's thanksgiving and great relief; a
burden which had lain at her heart for months past taking wings to
itself and flying away. She had not acknowledged to herself that cold
doubt about Robin Drummond, who had seemed to come so near to her, while
all the time he belonged to another woman. She had pushed away the doubt
with loyal refusal to hear it; but it had been there all the time. Now
it was gone for ever. There was no more need of excuses or explanations
to her own heart.

"Thank you for telling me," she said.

They were at the house-door and the hansom had pulled up. They went up
the steps between the couchant lions and before they could knock Pat had
opened the door, as though he had been listening for them.

"Miss Nelly is in the drawing-room, sir," he said in his privileged
Irish way; "but the master has just gone into the study."

They went up to the drawing-room. Nelly was sitting in a chair by the
open window as Robin had left her, tearless, her unemployed hands lying
in her lap. The circle of dogs about her watching her with anxious eyes
would have been humorous in other circumstances. The lamps were lit
behind her, but there was no light on her face, except the dying light
in the pale western sky.

"I have brought you a visitor, Nelly," Robin said.

She looked up indifferently. Then something of interest stirred in her
face.

"You have heard what has happened?" she said in a half-whisper.

Mary knelt down beside her and put her arms round the little frozen
figure.

"Why, you are cold!" she said. "Come away from the window. I am going to
ask for a fire, and then you will talk to me about it."

Robin Drummond left them together, and went down to tell Pat to light
the fire in the drawing-room, because Miss Nelly was cold.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ONE WOMAN