r whatever may have come between them, no woman ever quite
believes that the man who has once loved her will eventually marry some
other woman. Whether it happens early or late, it is always somewhat
of a shock. These marriages deal such a blow at faith in the
deathlessness of love, and whether the woman herself is married or not,
there remains always a secret and very tender corner in her heart for
the man who, having loved her unavailingly, has still found no other to
take her place even twenty or thirty years later.

Nan was conscious of an unspeakably deserted feeling. Maryon had gone
completely out of her life; Peter, the man she loved, could never come
into it; and the only man who strove for entrance was, as Penelope had
said, the last man in the world to make her happy.

Nevertheless, it seemed as though with gentle taps and pushes Fate were
urging them together--forcing her towards Roger so that she might
escape from forbidden love and the desperate fear and pain of it.

And then she saw him coming--it seemed almost as though her thought had
drawn him--coming with swift feet over the grassy slopes of the park,
too eager to follow the winding carriage-way, while the fallow-deer
bounded lightly aside at the sound of his footsteps, halting at a safe
distance to regard the intruder with big, timorous, velvety eyes.

Nan paused in the middle of the rose-garden, where a stone sundial
stood--grey and weather-beaten, its warning motto half obliterated by
the tender touches of the years:

"Time flies. Remember that each breath
But wafts thy erring spirit nearer death."

Rather nervously, while she waited for Trenby to join her, she traced
the ancient lettering with a slim forefinger. He crossed the lawn
rapidly, pausing beside her, and without looking up she read aloud the
grim couplet graven round the dial.

"That's a nice cheery motto," commented Trenby lightly. "They must
have been a lugubrious lot in the good old days!"

"They weren't so afraid of facing the truth as we are," Nan made answer
musingly. "I wonder why we always try to shut our eyes against the
fact of death? . . . It's there waiting for us round the corner all
the time."

"But there's life and love to come first," flashed out Roger.

Nan looked at him thoughtfully.

"Not for everyone," she said. Then suddenly: "Why are you here to-day,
Roger? I told you to come on Monday."

"I know you did. But I couldn't wait. It was