For he argued only from his own passionate desire. Lucy had never said
she loved him, yet he felt sure she did so. He loved her the moment they
met, and he had no doubt Lucy had been affected in the same manner as
himself. He knew her for his own, lost out of his soul-life long ago and
suddenly found one afternoon as she stood with her father at the gate of
their little garden. She had roses in her hands, or rather they were
lying across her white arms, and her exquisite face rose above them,
thrilling his heart with a strange but powerful sense of a right in her
that was wholly satisfying and indisputable.

"I will suffer no one to part me from Lucy," he mused. "She is mine. She
belongs to me, and to no other man in this world. I will not leave her.
I might lose her; if I go away, she must go with me. She loves me! I
know it! I feel it! When she sat at my side as we were driving together
she _was me_. Her personality melted into mine, and Lucy Lugur and Harry
Hatton were one. If I felt this, Lucy felt it. I will tell her, and she
will believe me, for I am sure she shared that wonderful transfusion of
the 'thee into me' which is beyond all explanation, and never felt but
with the one soul that is our soul."

Thus as he walked down to the village he thrilled himself with the
pictures of his own imaginings; for a passionate bewildering love, that
had all the unbearable realism of a dream, held him in its unconquerable
grip. There may be men who can force themselves to be reasonable in such
a condition, but Henry Hatton was not among them; and when he
unexpectedly met Lucy's father in the village, he quite forgot that the
man knew nothing at all of his affection for his daughter and his
intention to marry her.

"Mr. Lugur," he cried almost joyfully, "I was looking for you, hoping to
meet you, and here you are! I am so glad!"

Lugur looked up curiously. People did not usually address him with such
pronounced pleasure, and with Henry Hatton he had not been familiar, or
even friendly. "Good evening, Mr. Hatton," he answered, and he touched
the cap set so straight and positive on his big, dark head with slight
courtesy. "Have you any affair with me, sir?" he asked.

"I have."

"It is my busy night. I was going home, but----"

"Allow me to walk with you, Mr. Lugur."

"Very well. Talking will not hinder. I am at your service, sir."

[Illustration: "He knew her for his own ... as she stood with her father
at the gate