ouldn't feel more if I'd known you months instead of hours."

The wonder of it swept over Annesley in a flood. Even in her dreams--and
she had had wild dreams sometimes--she had never pictured a man such as
this loving her and wanting her. To the girl's mind he was so attractive
that it seemed impossible his choice of her could be from the heart. She
would wake up to a stale, flat to-morrow and find that none of these
things had really happened.

Still, she might as well live up to the dream while it lasted, and have
the more to remember.

"It's a fairy story, surely!" she said, trying to laugh. "There are so
many beautiful girls in the world for a man like you, that I----"

"A man like me! What _am_ I like?"

"Oh, it's hard to put into words. But--well, you're brave; I'm sure of
that."

"I hope I'm not a coward. All normal men are brave. That's nothing. What
else am I--to you?"

"Interesting. More interesting than--than any one I ever saw."

"If you feel that, you don't want to send me out of your life, do
you?--after you've stood by and sheltered me from danger?"

"No-o. I don't want to send you out of my life. But----"

"There's only one way in which you can keep me and I can keep
you--circumstanced as we are. We must be husband and wife."

"Oh!" The girl covered her face with both hands. The world was on fire
around her.

"I frighten you. Yet you might have consented to marry that other Smith.
You went to meet him, to decide whether he was possible."

"I know. But I see now, if he'd kept his appointment, it would have ended
in nothing, even if--if he had been pleased with me. I couldn't have
brought myself to say 'yes'."

"How can you be certain?"

"Because"--Annesley spoke almost in a whisper--"because he wasn't _you_."

Smith snatched her clasped hands and kissed them. The warm touch of the
man's lips gave the girl a new, mysterious sensation. No man had ever
kissed even her hands. Suddenly she felt sure that what she felt must be
love--love at first sight, which, according to him, was an electric call
from soul to soul. His kiss told her that they belonged to each other for
good or evil.

"Darling!" he said. "You are mine. I sha'n't let you go. For love of you
I'll free myself from this temporary trouble I'm in, and come back to
claim you soon. When I ask you to be my wife you'll say to me what you
_wouldn't_ have said to the other Smith?"

"If I can escape to hear you. But--you don't know M