t can mar our happiness when we both trust each other--when we
both love each other, and our two hearts beat as one?"

"Has not the French poet written a very serious truth in those lines:
'_Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment; chagrin d'amour dure toute la
vie_'?"

"Yes, but we shall experience no chagrin, sweetheart," I assured her.
"After another week here we will travel where you will. If you wish,
we will go to Carrington. There we shall be perfectly happy together,
away in beautiful Devonshire."

"I know you want to go there for the shooting, Owen," she said
quietly, yet regarding me somewhat strangely, I thought. "You have
asked Mr. Marlowe?"

"With your permission, dearest."

But her face changed, and she sighed slightly.

In an instant I recollected the admission that they had either met
before, or at least they knew something concerning each other.

"Perhaps you do not desire to entertain company yet?" I said quickly.
"Very well; I'll ask your father; he and I can have some sport
together."

"Owen," she said at last, turning her fair face again to mine, "would
you think it very, very strange of me, after all that you have done at
beautiful old Carrington, if I told you that I--well, that I do not
exactly like the place?"

This rather surprised me, for she had hitherto been full of admiration
of the fine, well-preserved relic of the Elizabethan age.

"Dearest, if you do not care for Carrington we will not go there. We
can either live at Wilton Street, or travel."

"I'm tired of travelling, dear," she declared. "Ah, so tired! So, if
you are content, let us live in Wilton Street. Carrington is so huge.
When we were there I always felt lost in those big old rooms and long,
echoing corridors."

"But your own rooms that I've had redecorated and furnished are
smaller," I said. "I admit that the old part of the house is very dark
and weird--full of ghosts of other times. There are a dozen or more
legends concerning it, as you know."

"Yes, I read them in the guide-book to Devon. Some are distinctly
quaint, are they not?"

"Some are tragic also--especially the story of little Lady Holbrook,
who was so brutally killed by the Roundheads because she refused to
reveal the whereabouts of her husband," I said.

"Poor little lady!" sighed Sylvia. "But that is not mere legend: it is
historical fact."

"Well," I said, "if you do not care for Carrington--if it is too dull
for you--we'll live in London. Per