wait for them
there, or come back; but they might not have started, and to put any
part of sea and land between herself and Archdale would be a joy to her.

Archdale watched her until she disappeared.

"And I called myself proud," he muttered. He stood lost in revery,
living the scene over again. "What eyes!" he thought; "they're as
unconscious as a child's, but such power as they have; they call out a
man's best, and I met her with my worst. I never even told her she was
generous. She meant to be kind when she humiliated me so." And then he
thought that she deserved a better fate than to be bound to him whose
heart was with Katie, and realized that Elizabeth was not at all the
kind of woman whom he should choose to set his love upon. Yet he smiled
scornfully at himself for the eager start with which he had cried out
that if she were roused she could be magnificent. A magnificent woman
was not in his line, and if it proved that she was his wife, she would
go through the world a sleeping princess, he said to himself, unless he
should go off to the wars and get shot. Perhaps that would be the best
way out of the difficulty, he thought, and would leave her free. At the
moment Edmonson's face rose before him, and he frowned as he wondered
what feeling there was in that quarter. "No, no," he said to himself.
"Not Edmonson. I know he's a villain; I feel it." He interrupted his
thoughts by asking, sarcastically, what it could all matter to himself,
well out of harm's way, what happened, what Elizabeth or anybody else
did? He was very angry with her, and she did not realize the Archdale
unforgiveness. If she had, would she have cared? She had not yielded her
purpose.

CHAPTER XXI.

WAR CLOUDS.

"I hate November," cried Mrs. Eveleigh, coming into Elizabeth's room
and bringing a whiff of cold air with her. "It's a mean month," she
continued. "There's nothing but disagreeable things about it. The leaves
are all gone, and the snow hasn't come. You can't even go out riding
with any comfort, the ground is so frozen you are jolted to pieces." And
with step emphasizing the petulance of her voice, the speaker turned
from her companion and went to her own room, to put away her bonnet and
the heavy cloak that, if it had not been able to protect her from the
roughness of the roads, had kept the cold air from doing more than
biting revengefully at her nose and the tips of her fingers, in place of
all the mischief it would have bee