asked her....

"Why, Hugo!" she said, surprised and a little uncomfortable. "That's so
much dear foolishness--and not a stitch of clothes made yet! October's
just around the corner.... Do sit up, Hugo dear. There's papa, I think."

Hugo sat up. Reason reasserted its sway. But later, Carlisle remembered
this moment with a dim sense of trouble, not entirely new.... She
wondered with a certain disquiet whether all this was some everlasting
difference between men and women, or whether she, Carlisle, was by
nature a cold and undemonstrative sort of person? Indeed, there did seem
to be a falling short in her somehow; for if not with herself and the
expressions of her love, with what was she to return Hugo's
royal gifts?...

There were three more days; and then young lovers must say farewell. In
little more than a week they would meet again in New York; but still
this seemed a real parting to both. It was the 13th of May, the day
which marked the end of three weeks of cloudless skies. The rain long
predicted by the weather sharps had come in the night, and the dreary
downpour continued throughout the day. Each of the young pair seemed
somehow conscious that the first chapter in their joint story had
reached an end. Better days they might certainly have, but never again
days just like these....

"Keep well, dear heart," begged Canning at the last, "and take care of
all your loveliness for my sake."

Proud of her beauty he ever was, and especially now when she was so soon
to meet his mother in New York. And at the final parting, he said,
visibly moved:

"Understand me, Carlisle, you are mine through all eternity. Whatever
happens to you or me, this is a love that shall not die."

Saying which, having now lingered to the last possible moment, he dashed
from her to his waiting taxicab--his own car having already gone by
express--with just five minutes to catch his train.

From the drawing-room window, Carlisle waved her hand to him; kissed it,
too, since nobody was looking. And then the car leapt forward and shot
away out of sight down the glistening street. Hugo was gone, and
Carlisle was alone.

She stood at the window, looking out blankly into the leaden wetness. It
was just after five, and the rain poured. A curious depression settled
quickly upon her, which was hardly fully accounted for as "missing Hugo
already."... Why? Who upon earth had less cause for depression than she?
No girl lived with more all-embracing r