thin her view. The oak stood the storm out--for a while.
Presently there came an awful gust and beat upon it. It would not
bend, and the tough roots would not give, so beneath the weight of the
gale the big tree broke in two like a straw, and its spreading top was
whirled into the moat. But the birch gave and bent; it bent till its
delicate filaments lay upon the wind like a woman's streaming hair,
and the fierceness of the blast wore itself away and spared it.

"See what happens to those who stand up and defy their fate," said Ida
to herself with a bitter laugh. "The birch has the best of it."

Ida turned and closed the shutters; the sight of the tempest affected
her strained nerves almost beyond bearing. She began to walk up and
down the big room, flitting like a ghost from end to end and back
again, and again back. What could she do? What should she do? Her fate
was upon her: she could no longer resist the inevitable--she must
marry him. And yet her whole soul revolted from the act with an
overwhelming fierceness which astonished even herself. She had known
two girls who had married people whom they did not like, being at the
time, or pretending to be, attached to somebody else, and she had
observed that they accommodated themselves to their fate with
considerable ease. But it was not so with her; she was fashioned of
another clay, and it made her faint to think of what was before her.
And yet the prospect was one on which she could expect little
sympathy. Her own father, although personally he disliked the man whom
she must marry, was clearly filled with amazement that she should
prefer Colonel Quaritch, middle-aged, poor, and plain, to Edward
Cossey--handsome, young, and rich as Croesus. He could not comprehend
or measure the extraordinary gulf which her love dug between the two.
If, therefore, this was so with her own father, how would it be with
the rest of the world?

She paced her bedroom till she was tired; then, in an access of
despair, which was sufficiently distressing in a person of her
reserved and stately manner, flung herself, weeping and sobbing, upon
her knees, and resting her aching head upon the bed, prayed as she had
never prayed before that this cup might pass from her.

She did not know--how should she?--that at this very moment her prayer
was being answered, and that her lover was then, even as she prayed,
lifting the broken stone and revealing the hoard of ruddy gold. But so
it was; she pra