ood for me to touch,
dearest--and you're going to marry me, to be my wife!"

She laughed at him softly. "Don't put me on too high a pedestal," she
said. "I shall tumble off some day and the fall will be so great. I'm
just an ordinary girl, whose only merit is that she loves the best, the
dearest man in the world. Such a lucky girl, dear!"

"All right," he said, with a laugh that was rather broken. "We'll leave
it at that; it's too wild an assertion to contradict. Though the luck's
all on my side, God knows. Now, let me think--it's hard to think when
I'm holding you like this, when my heart's jumping and something's
shouting in my ear, 'She's going to be your wife. Your wife!' I don't
know much about the business of being married--I've never been married
before, you see--but I fancy it's possible to get a special licence. I
don't know how you manage it; but I'll find out. Oh, by George! I'll ask
our friend, Reggie Rex; he appears to know everything, the human heart
included. Dearest, I hope you won't mind: I told him about--ourselves,
our happiness, last night. Not that it was necessary to tell him, for,
with that weird penetration, acuteness, of his, he guessed it the moment
he saw me, when I came back from you."

"I don't mind his knowing," said Celia. "I don't mind anyone knowing;
I'm so proud, so happy!"

Derrick bit his lip and was silent for a moment; then he said
reluctantly, hesitatingly,

"Celia, will you mind if I ask you, if I tell you that--that there are
reasons why I want our engagement, our coming marriage, to be kept
secret. Secret between us three."

She looked up at him with slight surprise in her eyes; then she said,
after a momentary pause,

"I do not mind. I am sure there are good reasons----"

"Which I'd tell you, I want to tell you," he broke in, frowning; "but I
can't. It's a question of honour----"

She put her hand on his lips. "There's no need to say any more. I don't
want you to tell me. If it would help you, I will tell you that I guess
it is something to do with that--that trouble which brought us together
and separated us."

Derrick nodded.

"I understand," she said. "Dearest, shall we come to an agreement about
all this? Shall we agree to forget it, to treat it as if it had never
happened?" She pressed his arm and, of her own accord, drew closer to
him. "Let us pretend that you and I met in the wood yesterday, for the
first time."

"Would to God we had!" he broke out; then