within a week or ten days. Oh dear! how
hard I tried to make him understand; but I couldn't succeed, and at
last in desperation a fresh idea occurred to me: I would run away! I
told him to come for his answer the next morning--oh, I know I was
horrid to him!"

"Well, we agree about that," said Jimmy. "We are going to agree about
everything, you see. I suppose," he added, "you thought you would
appeal to me as a sort of forlorn hope?"

"Oh, it was scarcely worth calling a hope," she answered. "You had
said so much about truthfulness. You could forgive anything else but
deceit, and of course I had deceived you from the beginning."

"So that you love me in the end," he said.

"Ah, Jimmy!" murmured Bridget. "But nobody will ever relieve it. They
will think I threw Colonel Faversham over because you were the richer.
It is only natural they should say that."

"Let them say what they like," was the answer. "When you told me about
your engagement I could do only one thing. I should have liked to ask
you to come away with me then and there; but I--well, it couldn't be
done, dear. The moment I heard you were free of the colonel, I hadn't
a doubt in the world. Bridget, you will have to make up your mind to
marry me at once."

She did not attempt to gainsay him, but placed her hand in his, and a
few minutes later they rose from their chairs, walking across the grass
to the gate by which Jimmy had entered the park. Bridget's step was
light, she hung upon his arm as they crossed the heath, the sun shone
upon her and she looked as if she had not a care in the world.

"I must say 'good-bye' now," said Jimmy, outside the garden gate. "I
shall see you to-morrow afternoon, but Sybil must come in the morning."

"At last!" cried Bridget, with a smile.

"Well, I always told you she would come," he answered. "For the rest,
I think your best plan will be to return to Golfney Place--it won't be
for many days, you know. Suppose I see Miller this evening and Sybil
can bring the motor-car to drive you back."

CHAPTER XXV

OPEN CONFESSION

Sybil Clynesworth made an unconditional surrender. It was true that,
never having seen Bridget, she failed to understand Jimmy's facile
satisfaction. She certainly still considered that he was ridiculously
credulous. But while she would have been prepared to go to great
lengths in order to prevent her brother from entering into what she
could not help regarding as an unsui