oice
there, I did not know then and I do not know now. But that the word
did not come from the Colonel was evident from the startled look he
cast about him and from the thrill which all at once passed over her
form from her shrouded head to her hidden feet.

"Do the heavens bid me?" she murmured, and laid her hand without
hesitation on the stone before her, saying, "I swear by the dead that
surround us to be your wife, Richard Schuyler, when the house you are
building for me in the woods is completed." And so pleased was he at
the readiness with which she spoke that he seemed to forget what had
caused it, and caught her in his arms as if she had been a child, and
so bore her away from before our eyes, while the man at my side
fought and struggled with himself to keep down the wrath and jealousy
which such a sight as this might well provoke in one even less
passionate and intemperate than himself.

When the one shadow which they now made had dissolved again into two,
and only Orrin and myself were left in that ghostly churchyard, I
declared with a courage I had never before shown:

"So that is settled, Orrin. She will marry the Colonel, and you and I
are wasting time in these gloomy walks."

To which, to my astonishment, he made this simple reply, "Yes, we are
wasting time"; and straightway turned and left the churchyard with a
quick step that seemed to tell of some new and fixed resolve.

* * * * *

Colonel Schuyler has been gone a week, and to-night I summoned up
courage to call on Juliet's father. I had no longer any right to call
upon _her_; but who shall say I may not call on him if he chooses to
welcome me and lose his time on my account. The reason for my going
is not far to seek. Orrin has been there, and Orrin cannot be trusted
in her presence alone. Though he seems to have accepted his fate, he
is restless, and keeps his eye on the ground in a brooding way I do
not comprehend and do not altogether like. Why should he think so
much, and why should he go to her house when he knows the sight of her
is inflaming to his heart and death to his self-control?

Juliet's father is a simple, proud old man who makes no attempt to
hide his satisfaction at his daughter's brilliant prospects. He talked
mainly of _the house_, and if he honored Orrin with half as much of
his confidence on that subject as he did me, then Orrin must know many
particulars about its structure of which the publ