t.

Should he tell her now?

He looked up quickly.

"Opal," he said, "you knew I would come."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because--I love you!"

The girl tried to laugh away the serious import of his tone.

"I am not looking for men to love me, Paul," she said.

"No, that's the trouble. You never have to."

He turned away again and for a few moments had no other apparent aim in
life than a careful scrutiny of the limpid water.

Somehow he felt a chill underlying her most casual words to-day. What
had become of the freemasonry between them they had both so readily
recognized on shipboard?

Just then Gilbert Ledoux and his wife strolled into the garden. They
were genuinely pleased to see Paul and insisted on keeping him for
luncheon. The conversation drifted to his western trip and other less
personal things and not again did he have an opportunity to talk alone
with Opal.

Paul took his departure soon after, promising to return for dinner, and
to bring Verdayne with him. Then, he resolved to himself, he would tell
Opal why he had come. Then he would claim her as his wife--his queen!

* * * * *

And Paul kept his word.

That evening they found themselves alone in a deep-recessed window
facing the dimly-lighted street.

"Opal," said Paul, "do you know why I have come to New Orleans? Can't
you imagine, dear?"

She instantly divined the tenor of his thoughts, and shook her head in a
tremor of sudden fright.

"I have come to tell you that I have fought it all out and that I cannot
live without you. Though I am breaking my plighted troth, I ask you to
become my wife!"

Her eyes glistened with a strange lustre.

"Oh, Paul! Paul!" she murmured, faintly. "Why did you not say this
before--or--why do you tell me now?"

"Because now I know I love you more than all the world--more than my
duty--more than my life! Is that enough?"

And Paul was about to break into a torrent of passionate appeal, when
Gilbert Ledoux joined them and, shortly after, Mrs. Ledoux called Opal
to her side.

Opal looked miserably unhappy. Why was she not rejoicing? Paul knew that
she loved him. Nothing could ever make him doubt that. As he stood
wondering, idly exchanging platitudes with his genial host, Mrs. Ledoux
spoke in a tone of ringing emphasis that lingered in Paul's ears all the
rest of his life, "I think, Opal, it is time to share our secret!"

And then, as the girl's face paled, and her frail