irst
drive together since all the shadows rolled away. It seems right,
somehow. Thank you, dear one, for bringing me. It is a perfect spot,
isn't it? It seems a worthy setting for the perfect joy which came to
me here. Phil, I wonder--when you promised to marry me--here--standing
by that gate--did you love me as much as you do now?"

Again that curious chill ran through the girl, but this time it was
much more definite, so strong that it gave her a feeling of physical
sickness. It was only with an effort that she could wrench her mind
free from the grip of it and answer calmly and with perfect truth, "I
have never loved you so well as I do to-day."

His arm pressed hers with a movement full of affection, and he smiled
into her eyes.

"We must be going back now. You will have been out long enough." So
saying she turned the pony round and they retraced their road.

"Oh, how it all comes back to me!" Francis continued. "You were so
full of life and spirits that day, I thought I should never get a
chance to say the words which were burning on my lips--to tell you what
I was longing you should know. I don't know which I love best, the
Phil who was always overflowing with fun and laughter, or the sweet
serious Phil of to-day."

He changed his tone instantly as he saw her face. "I was only speaking
in jest, dear one," he whispered. "I, too, can say as you said just
now, that I have never loved you so well as at this moment. But I have
a happy memory of the old Phil as she was before I was such an anxiety
to her that she almost forgot how to smile. But never mind, soon you
will forget all the sadness, and I will teach you your old trick of
laughter."

But Philippa did not speak. She was wrestling with the most
insupportable sensation of mingled misery and revolt, and she seemed to
hear words as clearly spoken as though the speaker were actually by her
side--"He does not love you. It is not you he loves."

A surge of anger blotted out the sunshine and darkened the whole world,
and through the darkness one lightning flash shot through the girl's
sick heart. This was jealousy. Suddenly she felt she could not bear
it--she could not sit there beside the man she loved and hear him talk
of other days which she had never known and of his love for another
woman. In a minute or two the storm passed, but it left her faint and
numb, with the beautiful veil which had enveloped her dream of bliss
torn to ribbons.