young eight years ago, and a
gayer, lighter-hearted chivalry had gone to his courtship of poor Amy.
Poor Amy, though he would not own it, had been a rather ineffectual
woman, with a prodigious opinion of her small self and a fretting
passion for dominion. She had had a crowd of friends and relations whom
she had allowed to come between them. Poor Amy had never understood him.
There were heights and depths in him to which she had made no appeal.

But Kitty--she had brought something out of him that had been hidden and
unknown to him before. Something that answered to the fear with which
she had drawn back from him and to the tremendous and tragic passion
with which she had given herself to him at the last. Poor little Amy had
never held him so. She had never loved him like that in all her poor
little life. And so his very tenderness for Kitty had terror in it, lest
he should fail her, lest he should in any way justify her prescience of
disaster.

Somebody was coming along the Cliff-path, somebody with a telegram for
Mrs. Tailleur. She rose, moving away from Lucy as she opened it.

"There is no answer," she said. And she came to him again and sat beside
him, very still, with hands spread over the telegram that lay open in
her lap.

"Has anything happened?"

She shook her head. He took the hand that she held out to him by way of
reassurance and possession.

"Then why do you look like that?"

She smiled.

"Kitty--that was an unconvincing smile."

"Was it? I'm sorry to say there's a tiresome man coming to see me."

"Say you can't see him. Send him a wire."

"I must. He's coming on business. I don't _want_ to see him."

"Can't I see him for you, if you feel like that?"

"No, dear. He must see me."

"When is he due?"

"At seven-thirty."

"Oh--only in the evening. How long do you think he'll stay?"

Kitty hardened her face. "Not a minute longer than I can help."

"An hour? Two hours?"

"I shall have to give him dinner. He's--he's that sort of man."

"Two hours, probably. I think I'll take Janey for a stroll while he's
here. You see, I've got to tell her, and I shall tell her then."

She put her hands on his shoulders. "And what will--Janey--say?"

"She'll say she's glad I'm going to be happy."

He became thoughtful. "And there are the children," he said. "I've got
to tell them, too."

She was silent. She did not ask him as he had half expected, "What will
_they_ say?"

"I think," he said, "I'd b