rt of her pride.

The only effect of his thrust that was visible to him put him in a
panic. "Don't--PLEASE don't look that way, Polly," he went on hastily.
"You don't see what I'm driving at yet. I didn't mean that I'd marry
her, or think of it. There isn't anybody but you. There couldn't be,
you know that."

"Why did you tell me, then?" she asked haughtily.

"Because--I had to begin somewhere. Polly, I'm going away, going
abroad. And I'm not to see you for--for I don't know how long--and--we
must be married!"

She looked at him in a daze.

"We can cross on the ferry at half-past ten," he went on. "You see that
house--the white one?" He pointed to the other bank of the river where
a white cottage shrank among the trees not far from a little church.
"Mr. Barker lives there--you must have heard of him. He's married
scores and hundreds of couples from this side. And we can be back here
at half-past eleven--twelve at the latest."

She shook her head expressed, not determination, only doubt.

"I can't, Jack," she said. "They----"

"Then you aren't certain you're ever going to marry me," he interrupted
bitterly. "You don't mean what you promised me. You care more for them
than you do for me. You don't really care for me at all."

"You don't believe that," she protested, her eyes and her mind on the
little white cottage. "You couldn't--you know me too well."

"Then there's no reason why we shouldn't get married. Don't we belong
to each other now? Why should we refuse to stand up and say so?"

That seemed unanswerable--a perfect excuse for doing what she wished to
do. For the little white cottage fascinated her--how she did long to
be sure of him! And she felt so free, so absolutely her own mistress
in these new surroundings, where no one attempted to exercise authority
over another.

"I must feel sure of you, Pauline. Sometimes everything seems to be
against me, and I even doubt you. And--that's when the temptations
pull hardest. If we were married it'd all be different."

Yes, it would be different. And he would be securely hers, with her
mind at rest instead of harassed as it would be if she let him go so
far away, free. And where was the harm in merely repeating before a
preacher the promise that now bound them both? She looked at him and he
at her.

"You don't put any others before me, do you, dear?" he asked.

"No, Jack--no one. I belong to you."

"Come!" he pleaded, and they went