into the carriage by the adoring Lemuel,
with many a pat, and a shaking of cushions, and an adjustment of curtains
to suit her whim. It pleased Hannah, now in her last lingering moment of
freedom, to be exacting and show others what a slave her husband was.

They all stood for an instant looking after the carriage, but Marcia
watched David. Then, just as the carriage wound around the curve in the
road and was lost from view, she saw him turn, and at once knew she must
not see his face as he looked at Kate. Closing her eyes like a flash she
turned and fled upstairs to get her shawl and bonnet. There she took
refuge behind the great white curtains, and hid her face for several
minutes, praying wildly, she hardly knew what, thankful she had been kept
from the sight which yet she had longed to behold.

As David turned to go up the steps and search for Marcia he was confronted
by Kate's beautiful, smiling face, radiant as it used to be when it had
first charmed him. He exulted, as he looked into it, that it did not any
longer charm.

"David, you don't seem a bit glad to see me," blamed Kate sweetly in her
pretty, childish tones, looking into his face with those blue eyes so like
to liquid skies. Almost there was a hint of tears in them. He had been
wont to kiss them when she looked like that. Now he felt only disgust as
some of the flippant sentences in her letters to Harry Temple came to his
mind.

His face was stern and unrecognizing.

"David, you are angry with me yet! You said you would forgive!" The gentle
reproach minimized the crime, and enlarged the punishment. It was Kate's
way. The pretty pout on the rosy lips was the same as it used to be when
she chided him for some trifling forgetfulness of her wishes.

The other guests had all gone into the house now. David made no response,
but, nothing daunted, Kate spoke again.

"I have something very important to consult you about. I came here on
purpose. Can you give me some time to-morrow morning?"

She wrinkled her pretty face into a thousand dimples and looked her most
bewitching like a naughty child who knew she was loved in spite of
anything, and coquettishly putting her head on one side, added, in the
tone she used of old to cajole him:

"You know you never could refuse me anything, David."

David did not smile. He did not answer the look. With a voice that
recognized her only as a stranger he said gravely:

"I have an important engagement to-morrow morn