you--the loveliest,
sweetest girl that ever lived--but I just _have_ to, and that's the
truth! I can't stand the suspense another hour.--If I waited long
enough would there be a chance for me in the end? If I were very, very
patient!"

A dimple dipped in the lovely curve of Rowena's cheek. She was sure
now--quite, quite sure! It was not merely a foolish, girlish
imagination. Guy loved her. Guy wanted her for his wife. She had
entered into her woman's kingdom, and, womanlike, began instantly to
adopt provocative little airs and graces.

"But I--I don't want you to be--to be--"

"To be what? _What_ don't you want me to be, Rowena?"

"P-atient!" sighed Rowena, and turned her head with a smile and a glance
and a blush which transformed the grey winter landscape into a very
Garden of Eden for the man by her side.

Ah, well! it was a blissful half-hour which followed, filled with the
inevitable questionings and recollections which every fresh Adam and Eve
believe to be their own exclusive property. "What did you think?"

"What did you mean?"

"Why did you say?"

"What was the first--the very first moment when you began to care?"
Hand in hand they passed along the country lanes, the reins lying slack
on the necks of their tired steeds; hand in hand they turned in at the
farther gate of the ploughed roads which lay across the fields, and
halfway along its length came suddenly upon the two still, half-
conscious figures of Dreda and Norah West.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

The alarm was given at the nearest farm, and the two girls conveyed with
all speed to The Meads, where a doctor was at once summoned to their
aid.

Norah's right knee was found to be badly fractured, from the effects of
which she had to face intense pain and discomfort for some days, and a
long, dragging convalescence. Given rest and care, however, recovery
was only a matter of time, and the onlookers were less anxious about her
than the other patient, who was raving with delirium in an adjoining
room. Dreda, like many robust people, had been more affected by the
deadly chill of those long waiting hours than was her more fragile
companion. Perhaps in nursing Norah upon her knee she had screened her
friend from the biting wind, which had seemed to cut like knives through
her own back. She had been like a figure of ice when she was carried
into the house; but before she had been an hour in bed the reaction had
set in and she was burning