ted
him to her in so noble a light that she had come to look up to him as
her superior. Her surrender had been complete, and she found in it a
joy far exceeding that of any victory or triumph she could imagine.

I could not for the life of me tell what would be the outcome of it
all. Mary was one woman in ten thousand, so full was she of feminine
force and will--a force which we men pretend to despise, but to which
in the end we always succumb.

Like most women, the princess was not much given to analysis; and, I
think, secretly felt that this matter of so great moment to her would,
as everything else always had, eventually turn itself to her desire.
She could not see the way, but, to her mind, there could be no doubt
about it; fate was her friend; always had been, and surely always
would be.

With Brandon it was different; experience as to how the ardently hoped
for usually turns out to be the sadly regretted, together with a
thorough face-to-face analysis of the situation, showed him the truth,
all too clearly, and he longed for the day when he should go, as a
sufferer longs for the surgeon's knife that is to relieve him of an
aching limb. The hopelessness of the outlook had for the time
destroyed nearly all of his combativeness, and had softened his nature
almost to apathetic weakness. It would do no good to struggle in a
boundless, fathomless sea; so he was ready to sink and was going to
New Spain to hope no more.

Mary did not see what was to prevent the separation, but this did not
trouble her as much as one would suppose, and she was content to let
events take their own way, hoping and believing that in the end it
would be hers. Events, however, continued in this wrong course so
long and persistently that at last the truth dawned upon her and she
began to doubt; and as time flew on and matters evinced a disposition
to grow worse instead of better, she gradually, like the sundial in
the moonlight, awakened to the fact that there was something wrong; a
cog loose somewhere in the complicated machinery of fate--the fate
which had always been her tried, trusted and obedient servant.

The trouble began in earnest with the discovery of our meetings in
Lady Mary's parlor. There was nothing at all unusual in the fact that
small companies of young folk frequently spent their evenings with
her, but we knew well enough that the unusual element in our parties
was their exceeding smallness. A company of eight or ten youn