took the reins from his groom.

"You will walk back, Black," he said, "by that path," with a wave of the
hand in a diverging direction.

As they drove across the heather, Emily was trembling softly from head
to foot. She could have told no human being what she felt. Only a woman
who had lived as she had lived and who had been trained as she had been
trained could have felt it. The brilliance of the thing which had
happened to her was so unheard of and so undeserved, she told herself.
It was so incredible that, even with the splendid gray mare's high-held
head before her and Lord Walderhurst by her side, she felt that she was
only part of a dream. Men had never said "things" to her, and a man was
saying them--the Marquis of Walderhurst was saying them. They were not
the kind of things every man says or said in every man's way, but they
so moved her soul that she quaked with joy.

"I am not a marrying man," said his lordship, "but I must marry, and I
like you better than any woman I have ever known. I do not generally
like women. I am a selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. Most
women are as selfish as I am myself. I used to like you when I heard
Maria speak of you. I have watched you and thought of you ever since I
came here. You are necessary to every one, and you are so modest that
you know nothing about it. You are a handsome woman, and you are always
thinking of other women's good looks."

Emily gave a soft little gasp.

"But Lady Agatha," she said. "I was sure it was Lady Agatha."

"I don't want a girl," returned his lordship. "A girl would bore me to
death. I am not going to dry-nurse a girl at the age of fifty-four. I
want a companion."

"But I am so _far_ from clever," faltered Emily.

The marquis turned in his driving-seat to look at her. It was really a
very nice look he gave her. It made Emily's cheeks grow pink and her
simple heart beat.

"You are the woman I want," he said. "You make me feel quite
sentimental."

When they reached Mallowe, Emily had upon her finger the ruby which Lady
Maria had graphically described as being "as big as a trouser button."
It was, indeed, so big that she could scarcely wear her glove over it.
She was still incredible, but she was blooming like a large rose. Lord
Walderhurst had said so many "things" to her that she seemed to behold a
new heaven and a new earth. She had been so swept off her feet that she
had not really been allowed time to think, after that fi