e spoken, but her look smote
him to silence. At last, as she took up her suit case and turned to go,
he implored her in a hoarse whisper, reaching out his arms to her:
"Hermy!"

But she shrank from his contact and, hastening from the room and along
the little passage, closed the door and left him to his hopeless misery.
As one in a dream she followed the old man down the stairs, was aware of
his ushering her through the crowd of women and children who thronged
about the big car. As one in a dream she found herself seated beside
Mrs. Trapes, whose motherly solicitude she heeded no more than the
bustle and traffic of the streets through which the swift car whirled
her on and on until, turning, it swung in between massive gates and
pulled up before a great, gloomy house.

As one in a dream she ascended the broad steps, crossed a stately hall,
was ushered up a noble stairway and along thick-carpeted corridors until
at last she found herself in a darkened chamber where, his dark head
conspicuous upon the white pillow, he lay. A nurse rose from beside the
bed as Hermione entered and softly withdrew. Left alone, she stood for
a long moment utterly still, her hands tightly clasped, her breath in
check, gazing at that dark head upon the pillow, at that outstretched
form lying so silent and so very still.

"Hermione!"

A feeble whisper, a sigh faintly breathed, but at the sound she had
crossed the wide chamber on feet swift and noiseless, had sunk upon her
knees beside the low bed to lean above him all murmurous love and
sighing tenderness, while she stole a timid hand to touch the hair that
curled upon his pallid brow; then, for all his helplessness, she flushed
beneath his look.

"How beautiful--you are!" he said faintly, "and I--weak as--confounded
rat! Hermione--love, they tell me I--must die. But first I want you
for--my very own if only for--a little while!"

"Oh, my dear," she whispered, soft mouth against his pale cheek, "I
always was yours--yours from the very first; I always shall be."

"Then you'll--marry me?"

"Yes, dear."

"Now?"

"Yes, dear."

"I--hoped you would, so--I arranged--minister's waiting now. Will
you--ring?" And he motioned feebly toward an electric bell-push that
stood upon a small table beside the bed.

And now once again as one in a dream she obeyed, and was presently aware
of soft-treading figures about her in the dim chamber--among them the
Old Un whose shoes for once creaked not at