ace, lent to her much-admired authors, had a very
pretty gate. It was approached from the garden way, through an arbour
thickly hung with roses and honeysuckle. It seemed to Aline West, as she
went alone to meet Somerled, that night distilled a special perfume in
the dew-filled cups of the flowers, sweet as unspoken love. She felt
that she was on the threshold of happiness. It was the first step that
counted. If she met Somerled in the right spirit, with the right word
and the right look ... in this perfumed star-dusk and stillness, when
they had not seen each other for days ... and he knew she had been
waiting here for him, thinking of him ... and he saw that she had put on
the dress he liked so much on shipboard, the one she had worn the last
night, when he told her his life-story ... might not the thing that she
desired happen? She encouraged herself by saying, "Why not?" and
reminding herself that she was an attractive woman. Lots of men had been
in love with her--not the right ones, but that was a detail. Why not Ian
Somerled? He was a man, after all, like others.

He was at the gate already ... she almost ran.

"Hail, the conquering hero!" she cried to him, laughing.

He opened the gate. But it was not he who came in. He was opening it for
some one else--a woman, a girl, something tall and feminine, anyhow. It
was wrapped in a cloak. It had a flat pancake on its head for a hat.
What could it be, and mean? The idea darted into Aline's mind that there
had been an accident on the way here from the station; that perhaps
Somerled had nearly or quite run over this creature--or her dog--or
something.

"Hello, Mrs. West!" he answered her cheerfully. "I've got to you at
last, and I've brought a visitor for the night. I've given my guarantee
that you'll make her welcome."

The light of Aline's joy went out like a ray of moonlight swallowed up
by a marauding cloud. She did not in the least understand what had
happened, or what were the obligations to which he had committed her;
but in any case the lute she had tuned had a rift in it, a big, bad
rift, and it could make no music to-night. She felt suddenly at her
worst instead of her best, as if she had tumbled off a bank of flowers
in her prettiest frock into a bog. She longed to be cold and snappy and
disagreeable, as a wife may safely be to a husband when he has
blundered, and as she had often been to Jim in his brief day; but
Somerled was not her husband, and certainl