t and give them time to be
married at Shelby."

"You mean you and I are to pretend we are somebody else, mean--"

Selwyn's voice was protestingly puzzled. Impersonation did not
appeal.

"There'll be no necessity to pretend. If a sheriff, with orders to
do so, takes charge of us he will hardly believe our assertion that
we are not the parties wanted. He's used to that. All we will have
to do is to wait until Tom and Madeleine come back. When they show
as proper a marriage certificate as a dairy-maid and farmer-laddie
ever framed he will let us go. You don't look as if playing groom to
my bride pleases you. I'm sorry, but--"

Into Selwyn's eyes came that which made me turn mine away and look
out of the window. Unthinkingly I had invited what he was going to
say. "Playing groom does not interest me. Why play? And stop
looking out of the window." He changed his seat and took the one
beside me. "Look at me, Danny. Why can't we be married at Claxon?
We'll wait for those children to come back and then--"

"Is that exactly fair?" I drew away the hands he was hurting in his
tense grip. "I hardly thought you'd take--" I shut my eyes to keep
back quick tears for which there was no accounting. Something
curious was suddenly possessing me, something that for weeks I had
seemed fighting and resisting. An overmastering desire to give in;
to surrender, to yield to his love for me, to mine for him, was
disarming me, and swift, inexplicable impulse to marry him and give
up the thing I was trying to do urged and swept over me. And then I
remembered his house with its high walls. And I remembered
Scarborough Square. Until there was between them sympathy and
understanding there could be no abiding basis on which love could
build and find enrichment and fulfilment. Straightening, I sat up,
but I was conscious of being very tired.

"Please don't, Selwyn." The hand I had drawn away I held out to him.
"We must not think or talk of ourselves to-day. This is not our day."

"But I want my day." His strong fingers twisted into mine with
bruising force. "I have waited long for it. For all others you have
consideration, but my happiness alone you ignore. You seem to think
my endurance is beyond limit. How long are you going to keep this
thing up? Some day you are going to marry me. Why not to-day?"

I shook my head. "I cannot marry you today. Take care--" The
conductor was coming down the aisle toward us.