be your
daughter?"

Lady Verner looked at Decima. "She so seldom dances. I do not think you
will persuade her."

"I think I can," he softly said, bending to Decima and holding out his
arm. And Decima rose and put hers into it without a word.

"How capricious she is!" remarked Lady Verner to the Countess of
Elmsley, who was sitting next her. "If I had pressed her, she would
probably have said no--as she has done so many times."

He took his place at the head of the room, Decima by his side in her
white silk robes. Decima, with her wondrous beauty, and the hectic on
her cheeks again. Many an envious pair of eyes was cast to her. "That
dreadful old maid, Decima Verner!" was amongst the compliments launched
at her. "_She_ to usurp him! How had my Lady Verner contrived to
manoeuvre for it?"

But Sir Edmund did not appear dissatisfied with his partner, if the room
was. He paid a vast deal more attention to her than he did to the dance;
the latter he put out more than once, his head and eyes being bent,
whispering to Decima. Before the dance was over, the hectic on her
cheeks had grown deeper.

"Are you afraid of the night air?" he asked, leading her through the
conservatory to the door at its other end.

"No. It never hurts me."

He proceeded along the gravel path round to the other side of the house;
there he opened the glass doors of a room and entered. It led into
another, bright with fire.

"It is my own sitting-room," he observed. "Nobody will intrude upon us
here."

Taking up the poker, he stirred the fire into a blaze. Then he put it
down and turned to her, as she stood on the hearth-rug.

"Decima!"

It was only a simple name; but Sir Edmund's whole frame was quivering
with emotion as he spoke it. He clasped her to him with a strangely fond
gesture, and bent his face on hers.

"I left my farewell on your lips when I quitted you, Decima. I must take
my welcome from them now."

She burst into tears as she clung to him. "Sir Rufus sent for me when he
was dying," she whispered. "Edmund, he said he was sorry to have
opposed you; he said he would not if the time could come over again."

"I know it," he answered. "I have his full consent; nay, his blessing.
They are but a few words, but they were the last he ever wrote. You
shall see them, Decima: he calls you my future wife, Lady Hautley. Oh,
my darling! what a long, cruel separation it has been!"

Ay! far more long, more cruel for Decima than for him.