of sobs had died away, a sound broke on her ear, the sound of a slow, steady tramp. Was it the beating of her heart?—or was it Earl St. George? It drew nearer; she dared not rise and see. She heard the splash of the feet in the water, in the intense light within her brain could seem to see the dark water strike up and break in showers of prisms. Then the feet left it, and came up the bank. Should she dare? If she delayed———Suddenly that apparition tangled in the blue and silver scarf rose and confronted Mr. St. George.
The horse knew her, as he swerved, then bent to rub his cheek on her shoulder; Rounce, who, from stopping to plant his nose deep in every rose upon his way, had just rushed up breathless, knew her too, and fell to frolicking about her feet. She stood with both her arms about the horse's bending neck, with her face half drooping there, and the black, falling tress curving forward on the cheek.
"I never loved him!" was what she murmured. "I never meant to marry him!"
"Miss Changarnier!" exclaimed Mr. St. George, dismounting, thinking, perhaps, that trouble made her wild. "Here? To-day? Alone? You must return at once!"
"I never, never will return, unless you take me back!" she said, raising her head, but not daring to raise her quivering glance.
"Éloise! Éloise! Do you know what you say?"
She ventured just a glimpse at the dark eyes above her, glowing and glooming, smiles breaking out of their pain, and then with a little blind motion the tender face was hidden in his breast.
Just there a cloud peeled off the sun and went all radiant upon its way, the silent birds fell into one deep chorus, the locust shot out its great whirring lance of jubilant sound, the whole forest grew astir and alive over the glad secret it had learned.
The sun was setting, when Mr. St. George, leading his horse, on whose back Éloise was throned, and followed by Hazel and Vane, came into view of the wondering, waiting, indignant party on the piazza. The party, fickle as any mob, be it patrician or plebeian, was easily appeased with such quarry as it found, and changed itself straightway with acclaim into a bridal party. That night St. George brought in and tried upon the third finger of the white left-hand a narrow glittering band.
"Nothing but a wedding-fetter?" he asked. "Yet capable of great things, that fetter! It holds the famous elixir which sinks two identities in one; it is the visible sign of a sacrament; it is to be the type of our souls' union, pure, perfect, and without end"———
But here, perhaps, the eyes of Éloise silenced him, perhaps the mouth. And when life settled in its new channel at The Rim, Éloise, wearing at last her father's name, sat at the head of her husband's table, and Mrs. Earl St. George Erne herself entertained her guests. They lingered a little while, with the disinclination that any group finds to separate, and circumstances had knitted a bond among them all. And then, when deepening summer ended the renewed cheer, Mrs. Arles put on her widow's-cap once more, her little foot went into obscurity, and the gold and ebony riding-whip hung reclaimed above her mantel.
