Elizabeth with a great effort wrenched her hands away from Paul's grasp, and fell against one of the marble-topped tables. Her face was white, her dull eyes looked up at him with a sort of terror.

"I—I have failed you," she said, speaking slowly and thickly, with parched lips. "I have come, but I—cannot stay. I was going when you came in."

"Elizabeth!" The look of exultant joy faded slowly and reluctantly from Paul's face. "Elizabeth, what do you mean? Why did you come if you don't mean to stay?"

"Because I—was crazy." She was trembling now, and she clung to the table for support; but still she was firm. "I—I didn't think what I did. Now I—I know. It would be wrong to marry like this—so secretly. I must go home. Let me pass." She spoke the last words quickly, imperiously, and made a motion as if to brush past him; but he stood motionless in the door and blocked her way.

He was very angry; she had never seen him so before. The emotion lent a curious brute strength to his fair, sensuous beauty. His face was as white as hers, his full red lips were set in a curve of unwonted determination.

"Listen to me, Elizabeth." He had never spoken to her in such a tone before. "I won't be trifled with like this. I have made all the arrangements. I won't have you—jilt me now. You must come with me, or I—I'll know the reason why."

She met his gaze defiantly. "You can't compel me to come you know," she said. And again she would have passed him, and again he stopped her. She did not try a third time, but sank into a chair and put up her hands to her face. A sudden faintness came over her; it might have been the heat, or the sharp, conflicting play of emotion. He followed her and gently took her hands from her face and looked into her eyes.

"Don't be foolish, darling," he said, persuasively. "You know that you love me, that you are only playing with me. You wouldn't really throw me over now."

She looked up reluctantly, fascinated as she had often been before, by the mere physical attraction of his beauty. "I—I don't know," she began slowly, and then stopped frightened at the sound of voices in the shop. A dread flashed over her all at once of a scene in a place like this. The trifling, frivolous consideration turned the scale in Paul's favor. She rose, shook off his grasp, and gave a hasty glance in the glass.

"No, I won't throw you over," she said. "It's all wrong but—as you say, it's too late now. Take care—some one is coming." She gave a warning look at the door, as Paul pressed her hand.

So the threatened scene was averted and Elizabeth's fate was sealed. The people who, after buying candy in the shop, came into the little back room for some ice cream, saw a young woman arranging her hair before the glass, and a young man waiting for her—a not unusual sight.

What followed seemed in after life a dream to Elizabeth. There were times when she tried to think that it had never happened; that the whole thing was a mere figment of the imagination. But on that day she was quite conscious that it was she herself, in very flesh and blood, Elizabeth Van Vorst, who walked by Paul Halleck's side through the glaring, sunny streets of Cranston, went with him into a dimly-lighted church, let him place a ring upon her finger, spoke her share in the marriage service, and wrote her maiden name for what should have been the last time, in the parish register. The clergyman was very old and mumbled over the service; the witnesses, two servants of his, were old and feeble, also, and took but small interest. The church was damp like a tomb after the heat without; Elizabeth found herself shivering as from a chill. It was a relief to come out again into the heat which had been so oppressive before. But on the church steps Elizabeth gave a little cry. A funeral was slowly filing past, its black trappings standing out in incongruous gloom against the noon-day brilliance.

Elizabeth looked at Paul. He had turned very white, and he too was shivering. "It is a bad omen," he said, in a low voice, as if to himself. He said no more, but led the way carefully in the opposite direction from that which the funeral had taken.

They found themselves in a part of Cranston unknown to Elizabeth. The road was bordered on either side by flowering hedges and led apparently into the open country. There were no houses in sight; for the moment, even no people. Halleck suddenly turned and clasped Elizabeth almost roughly in his arms, while he pressed passionate kisses upon her brow, her lips, her hair.

"My darling," he cried "I can't—I can't give you up. I was mad to promise it. Let everything go and come with me to New York."

"No, no, I can't," she murmured faintly. "I can't." His vehemence stunned, bewildered her; but instinctively she struggled against it. "You promised," she cried out indignantly, "you promised that I should be free—till you came back. I've kept my word, you must keep yours."

He let her go and for a moment they eyed each other steadily. This time the victory remained with her. "Did I really make that promise?" he said at last with a sigh. "Well, if I did, I must keep it, I suppose. But, Elizabeth, you must be made of ice—you can't love me, or you wouldn't hold me to it."

Elizabeth was chiefly conscious of an overpowering sense of relief.

"I do love you," she said, soothingly, "but indeed it is better—much better to let things be as we arranged them. I can't go to New York in this dress"—she gave a little tremulous laugh, as she glanced at her fluffy muslin skirts. "Only a man could suggest such a thing. And then my aunts!—they would be distracted. No, no, I must go home at once. You will be back in six months," she went on, trying to console him. "They will pass very quickly."

"Six months," he sighed. "It is an endless time." He was the picture of gloom as they turned and walked steadily back to the busy part of Cranston. And she, too, had her regrets. The compromise was satisfactory to neither.

At the corner of the High Street they parted. There was no opportunity for more than a hand-clasp, a few hurried words of farewell. Then he went his way to the railroad station, and she hurried to the trolley. The country woman with the many parcels was there before her, and told where she got the stockings, and how much she paid for them.

Back again went the trolley, along the asphalted road past the Queen Anne villas with their terraced gardens, past bicycles, carriages, wagons, and always clouds of dust; out into the open country, with rolling meadow and upland on either side, simmering in the heat of the summer afternoon, to which the morning heat was as nothing; Elizabeth sitting upright, shading her eyes from the glare, with aching head and burning eyes, and throbbing brain that refused to take in the reality of what she had done. This was her wedding journey.

An hour later the white pony brought her home.

"Did you—did you match your ribbon, dear?" Miss Joanna inquired anxiously. Elizabeth stared blankly for a moment.

"I—I never thought of the ribbon," she cried at last, and burst into hysterical laughter.