er whether you could guess?" he said, as he thought of her
father's words, his assertion that Stafford was to be his son-in-law.
"I suppose you must."

Her gaze was as steady as his, but her lips quivered slightly.

"I would rather you should tell me than that I should I guess," she
said in a low voice. "I might be wrong."

He was not in a condition to notice the significance of her last words,
and he went on with a kind of desperation.

"I brought you here into the garden, Miss Falconer, to ask you if you'd
be my wife."

They had stopped just within the radius of an electric light, held
aloft by a grinning satyr, and Stafford saw her face grow paler and
paler in the seconds that followed the momentous question. He could see
her bosom heaving under the half-open fur cloak, felt her hand close
for an instant on his arm.

"Do you wish me to say 'Yes'?" she asked in a low voice.

The red flooded Stafford's face for a moment, and his eyes fell under
her fixed regard.

"What answer does one generally hope for when one puts such a
question?" he said, trying to smile. "I want you to be my wife, and I
hope, with all my heart, that you will say 'Yes.'"

"'With all your heart,'" she echoed, slowly, almost inaudibly. "'With
all your heart.' With all mine, I answer 'Yes.'"

As she murmured the words--and, like that of most cold women when they
are intensely moved, her voice could be exquisitely sweet with its
thrill of passion, all the sweeter for its rarity--she insensibly drew
nearer to him and her hand stole to his shoulder. Her eyes were lifted
to his, and they shone with the love that was coursing through her
veins, almost stopping the beating of her heart. Love radiated from her
as the light radiated from the lamp the mocking satyr held above them.
Stafford was at his best and worst, a man and not a block of stone and
wood, and touched, almost fired, by the passion so close to him, he put
his arm round her waist and bent his head until his lips nearly touched
hers.

Her eyes closed and she was surrendering herself to the kiss, when
suddenly she drew her head back, and, keeping him from her, looked up
at him. "Is it with all your heart?" she whispered. "You have never
spoken to me of--love before. Is it with all your heart?"

His brow contracted in a frown, he set his teeth hard. If he were to
lie, 'twere better that he lied thoroughly and well; better that his
sacrifice should be complete and effectual. Scarcel