You have no business to ask, but of course I'm dying to tell you. I
went from that Painter's Purgatory as we call it, to Mr. Hope's, and
asked for Miss Jessie. My angel came down; I told her of my success, and
she smiled as never a woman did before; I added that I'd only waited to
make myself more worthy of her, by showing that I had talent, as well as
love and money to offer her, and she began to cry, whereat I took her in
my arms and ascended straight into heaven."

"Please be sober, Mark, and tell me all about it. Was she glad? Did she
say she would? And is everything as we would have it?"

"It is all perfect, divine, and rapturous, to the last degree. Jessie
has liked me ever since she was born, she thinks; adores you and Prue
for sisters; yearns to call my parent father; allowed me to say and do
whatever I liked; and gave me a ravishing kiss just there. Sacred spot;
I shall get a mate to it when I put this on her blessed little finger.
Try it for me, I want it to be right, and your hands are of a size. That
fits grandly. When shall I see a joyful sweetheart doing this on his own
behalf, Sylvia?"

"Never!"

She shook off the ring as if it burned her, watching it roll glittering
away, with a somewhat tragical expression. Then she calmed herself, and
sitting down to her work, enjoyed Mark's raptures for an hour.

The distant city bells were ringing nine that night as a man paused
before Mr. Yule's house, and attentively scrutinized each window. Many
were alight, but on the drawn curtain of one a woman's shadow came and
went. He watched it a moment, passed up the steps, and noiselessly went
in. The hall was bright and solitary; from above came the sound of
voices, from a room to the right, the stir of papers and the scratch of
a pen, from one on the left, a steady rustle as of silk, swept slowly to
and fro. To the threshold of this door the man stepped and looked in.

Sylvia was just turning in her walk, and as she came musing down the
room, Moor saw her well. With some women dress has no relation to states
of mind; with Sylvia it was often an indication of the mental garb she
wore. Moor remembered this trait, and saw in both countenance and
costume the change that had befallen her in his long absence. Her face
was neither gay nor melancholy, but serious and coldly quiet, as if some
inward twilight reigned. Her dress, a soft, sad grey, with no decoration
but a knot of snowdrops in her bosom. On these pale flowers