always safe, here in my arms."

And if she had known it, for the first time in his life there were tears
in John Derringham's proud eyes. For he knew now he had found her--the
one woman with a soul.

Then they parted, when every smallest detail was settled, for she had
promised to help Miss Roberta with a new design for her embroidery, and
he had promised to join Mrs. Cricklander's party for an early lunch.
They intended to make an excursion to see the ruins of Graseworth Tower
in the afternoon.

"And indeed we can bear the separation now, my darling," he said,
"because we shall both know that we must go through only four more days
before we are together--for always!"

But even so it seemed as if they could not tear themselves apart, and
when he did let her go he strode after her again and pleaded for one
more kiss.

"There!" she whispered, smiling while her eyes half filled with mist.
"This tree is forever sacred to us. John, it is listening now when I
tell you once more that I love you."

And then she fled.

CHAPTER XX

When once John Derringham had definitely made up his mind to any course
in life, he continued in it with decision and skill, and carried off the
situation with a high-handed assurance. Thus he felt no qualms of
awkwardness in meeting Mrs. Cricklander and treating her with an
enchanting ease and friendliness which was completely disconcerting. She
had no _casus belli_; she could not find fault with his manner or his
words, and yet she was left with the blank conviction that her hopes in
regard to him were over. She despised men in her heart because, as a
rule, she was able to calculate with certainty every move in her games
with them. Feeling no slightest passion, her very mediocre intellect
proved often more than a match for the cleverest. But her supreme belief
in herself now received a heavy blow. She was never so near to loving
John Derringham as during this Whitsuntide when she felt she had lost
him. Cora Lutworth once said of her:

"Cis is one of the happiest women in the world, because when she looks
in the glass in the morning she never sees anything but herself, and is
perfectly content. Most of us find shadows peeping over our shoulders of
what we would like to be."

Arabella found her employer extremely trying during the Saturday and
Sunday, and was almost in tears when she wrote to her mother.

Mr. Derringham has plainly determined not to be ensnared yet. If this