in her
face, her gesture.

"Jack," she went on, "a woman needs some one to take care of her, to
love her. I want you to take care of me--you wouldn't throw me over for
just a little thing--when all the time you yourself--"

"The light shone for miles across the valley," said I.

"Precisely, and that was how he happened to come up, I do not doubt. He
thought we were still up about the place. My father has always told him
to make this his home, and not to go to the tavern. They are friends
politically, in many ways, as you know."

"The light then was that of some servant?"

"Certainly it was. I know nothing of it. It was an accident, and yet you
blame me as though--why, it was all accident that you met Captain Orme.
Tell me, Jack, did you quarrel? What did he tell you?"

"Many things. He is no fit man for you to know, nor for any woman."

"Do I not know that? I will never see him again."

"No, he will never come back here again, that is fairly sure. He has
promised that; and he asked me to promise one thing, by the way."

"What was that?"

"To keep my promise with you. He asked me to marry you! Why?"

Infinite wit of woman! What chance have we men against such weapons? It
was coquetry she forced to her face, and nothing else, when she
answered: "So, then, he was hard hit, after all! I did not know that.
How tender of him, to wish me married to another than himself! The
conceit of you men is something wondrous."

"Mr. Orme was so kind as to inform me that I was a gentleman, and
likewise a very great ass."

"Did you promise him to keep your promise, Jack?" She put both her hands
on mine as it lay on the chair arm. Her eyes looked into mine straight
and full. It would have taken more imagination than mine to suspect the
slightest flickering in their lids. "Jack," she murmured over and over
again. "I love you! I have never loved any other man."

"So now," I resumed, "I have come to you to tell you of all these
things, and to decide definitely and finally in regard to our next
plans."

"But you believe me, Jack? You do promise to keep your promise? You do
love me?"

"I doubt no woman whom I wed," I answered. "I shall be gone for two or
three weeks. As matters are at this moment it would be folly for either
of us to do more than let everything stand precisely as it is until we
have had time to think. I shall come back, Miss Grace, and I shall ask
your answer."

"Jack, I'm sure of that," she murmured. "It