and fascinated, as
with her round arms gracefully lifted in front of the old mirror she had
taken off her hat and veil; smoothing, by a few deft touches, the dark
crown of her hair. The unwonted intimacy of the moment, invoking as it
did an endless reflection of other similar moments in their future life
together, was in its effect overwhelming, bringing with it at last a
conviction not to be denied. Her colour rose as she faced him, her
lashes fell.

"Did you seriously think, dear, that we could have deceived Mr. Bentley?
Then you are not as clever as I thought you. As soon as it happened I
sent him a note? that very night. For I felt that he ought to be told
first of all."

"And as usual," Hodder answered, "you were right."

Supper was but a continuation of that delicious sense of intimacy. And
Sam, beaming in his starched shirt and swallow-tail, had an air of
presiding over a banquet of state. And for that matter, none had ever
gone away hungry from this table, either for meat or love. It was,
indeed, a consecrated meal,--consecrated for being just there. Such
was the tact which the old darky had acquired from his master that he
left the dishes on the shining mahogany board, and bowed himself out.

"When you wants me, Miss Alison, des ring de bell."

She was seated upright yet charmingly graceful, behind the old English
coffee service which had been Mr. Bentley's mother's. And it was she
who, by her wonderful self-possession, by the reassuring smile she gave
him as she handed him his cup, endowed it all with reality.

"It's strange," she said, "but it seems as though I had been doing it all
my life, instead of just beginning."

"And you do it as though you had," he declared.

"Which is a proof," she replied, "of the superior adaptability of women."

He did not deny it. He would not then, in truth, have disputed her
wildest statement. . . But presently, after they had gone back into
the library and were seated side by side before the coals, they spoke
again of serious things, marvelling once more at a happiness which could
be tinged and yet unmarred by vicarious sorrow. Theirs was the soberer,
profounder happiness of gratitude and wonder, too wise to exult, but
which of itself is exalted; the happiness which praises, and passes
understanding.

"There are many things I want to say to you, John," she told him, once,
"and they trouble me a little. It is only because I am so utterly
devoted to you that I wish