e hearthrug by her side.

"Do you know that I kissed you last night?" he reminded her.

"I do," she answered. "That is why I have just paid eighty-four pounds
for a passage to Buenos Ayres."

"I should have enjoyed the trip," he said. "Still, I'm glad I haven't to
go."

"Do you really mean that you would have come after me?" she asked
curiously.

"Of course I should," he assured her. "Believe me, there isn't such
an obstinate person in the world as the man of early middle-age who
suddenly discovers the woman he means to marry."

"But you can't marry me," she protested.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I was Oliver Hilditch's wife, for one thing."

"Look here," he said, "if you had been Beelzebub's wife, it wouldn't
make the least difference to me. You haven't given me much of a chance
to tell you so yet, Margaret, but I love you."

She sat a little forward in her chair. Her eyes were fixed upon his
wonderingly.

"But how can you?" she exclaimed. "You know, nothing of me except my
associations, and they have been horrible. What is there to love in me?
I am a frozen-up woman. Everything is dead here," she went on, clasping
her hand to her heart. "I have no sentiment, no passion, nothing but an
animal desire to live my life luxuriously and quickly."

He smiled confidently. Then, with very little warning, he sank on one
knee, drew her face to his, kissed her lips and then her eyes.

"Are you so sure of all these things, Margaret?" he whispered. "Don't
you think it is, perhaps, because there has been no one to care for you
as I do--as I shall--to the end of my days? The lily you left on your
chair last night was like you--fair and stately and beautiful, but a
little bruised. You will come back as it has done, come back to the
world. My love will bring you. My care. Believe it, please!"

Then he saw the first signs of change in her face. There was the
faintest shade of almost shell-like pink underneath the creamy-white of
her cheeks. Her lips were trembling a little, her eyes were misty. With
a sudden passionate little impulse, her arms were around his neck, her
lips sought his of their own accord.

"Let me forget," she sobbed. "Kiss me let me forget!"

Francis' servant was both heavy-footed and discreet. When he entered the
room with a tray, his master was standing at the sideboard.

"I've done the best I could, sir," he announced, a little
apologetically. "Shall I lay the cloth?"

"Leave everything on