g to bed," said Archie. "Got to have a straight eye to-morrow."

"Oh! sit down a second.... I want to talk."

Archie, as a compromise, propped himself against the back of a chair.

"She doesn't regret it, then?" pursued Dick.

"Not she," said Archie. "It would never have done."

"I know," agreed Dick warmly. (It was a real pleasure to him that head
and heart went together in this matter.) "But sometimes, you know, women
regret that sort of thing. Wish they hadn't been quite so sensible, you
know."

"Jenny doesn't," said Archie.

Dick took up his glass which he had filled with his third
whisky-and-soda, hardly five minutes before, and drank half of it. He
sucked his mustache, and in that instant confidentialism rose in his
heart.

"Well, I'm going to have a shot myself," he said.

"What?"

"I'm going to have a shot. She can but say 'No.'"

Archie's extreme repose of manner vanished for a second. His jaw dropped
a little.

"But, good Lord! I hadn't the faintest--"

"I know you hadn't. But I've had it for a long time.... What d'you
think, Archie?"

"My good chap--"

"Yes, I know; leave all that out. We'll take that as read. What comes
next?"

Archie looked at him a moment.

"How d'you mean? Do you mean, do I approve?"

"Well, I didn't mean that," admitted Dick. "I meant, how'd I better set
about it?"

Archie's face froze ever so slightly. (It will be remembered that Jack
Kirkby considered him pompous.)

"You must do it your own way," he said.

"Sorry, old man," said Dick. "Didn't mean to be rude."

Archie straightened himself from the chair-back.

"It's all rather surprising," he said. "It never entered my head. I
must think about it. Good-night. Put the lights out when you come."

"Archie, old man, are you annoyed?"

"No, no; that's all right," said Archie.

And really and truly that was all that passed between these two that
night on the subject of Jenny--so reposeful were they.

(II)

There was a glorious breeze blowing over the hills as Jenny rode slowly
up about noon next day. The country is a curious mixture--miles of moor,
as desolate and simple and beautiful as moors can be, and by glimpses,
now and then in the valleys between, of entirely civilized villages,
with even a town or two here and there, prick-up spires and roofs; and,
even more ominous, in this direction and that, lie patches of smoke
about the great chimneys.

Jenny was meditative as she rode up alone. It is ve