hen clasped it tight
between her hands. She was almost afraid to read it lest the letter
itself should contradict the promise which the last words of it had
seemed to convey to her. She went up to the window and stood there
gazing out upon the gravel road, with her hand containing the letter
pressed upon her heart. Lady Fawn had told her that she was preparing
for herself inexpressible misery;--and now there had come to her joy
so absolutely inexpressible! "A man to tell you that he loves you,
and yet not ask you to be his wife!" She repeated to herself Lady
Fawn's words,--and then those other words, "Yours ever and always, if
you will have me!" Have him, indeed! She threw from her, at once, as
vain and wicked and false, all idea of coying her love. She would
leap at his neck if he were there, and tell him that for years he had
been almost her god. And of course he knew it. "If I will have him!
Traitor!" she said to herself, smiling through her tears. Then she
reflected that after all it would be well that she should read the
letter. There might be conditions;--though what conditions could he
propose with which she would not comply? However, she seated herself
in a corner of the room and did read the letter. As she read it, she
hardly understood it all;--but she understood what she wanted to
understand. He asked her to share with him his home. He had spoken
to her that day without forethought;--but mustn't such speech be
the truest and the sweetest of all speeches? "And now I write to
you to ask you to be my wife." Oh, how wrong some people can be in
their judgments! How wrong Lady Fawn had been in hers about Frank
Greystock! "For the last year or two I have lived with this hope
before me." "And so have I," said Lucy. "And so have I;--with that
and no other." "Too great confidence! Traitor," she said again,
smiling and weeping, "yes, traitor; when of course you knew it." "Is
his happiness in my hands? Oh,--then he shall be happy." "Of course I
will tell Lady Fawn at once;--instantly. Dear Lady Fawn! But yet she
has been so wrong. I suppose she will let him come here. But what
does it matter, now that I know it?" "Yours ever and always,--if you
will have me.--F. G." "Traitor, traitor, traitor!" Then she got up
and walked about the room, not knowing what she did, holding the
letter now between her hands, and then pressing it to her lips.

She was still walking about the room when there came a low tap at the
door, and Lad