George felt that his heart was beating faster as he prepared to hear what Totty had to say. He knew that the moment had come for making a decision of some sort, and he was annoyed that it should be thrust upon him, especially by Totty Trimm. He could not be sure of what she was about to say, but he supposed that it was her intention to deliver him a lecture upon his conduct towards Mamie, and to request him to make it clear to the girl, either by words or by an immediate departure, that he could never love her and much less marry her, considering his relatively impecunious position. It struck him that many women would have spoken in a more severe tone of voice than his cousin used, but this he attributed to her native good humour as much as to her tact. He drew his chair nearer to hers, nearer than it had been to Mamie’s, and prepared to listen.

“George, dear boy,” said Totty, “this is a very delicate matter. I really hardly know how to begin, unless you will help me.” A little laugh, half shy, half affectionate, rippled pleasantly in the dusky air. Totty meant to show from the first that she was not angry.

“About Mamie?” George suggested.

“Yes,” Totty answered with a quick change to the intonation of sadness. “About Mamie. I am very much troubled about her. Poor child! She is so unhappy—you do not know.”

“I am sincerely sorry,” said George gravely. “I am very fond of her.”

“Yes, I know you are. If things had not been precisely as they are——” She paused as though asking his help.

“You would have been glad of it. I understand.” George thought that she was referring to his want of fortune, as she meant that he should think. She wanted to depress him a little, in order to surprise him the more afterwards.

“No, George dear. You do not understand. I mean that if you loved her, instead of being merely fond of her, it would be easier to speak of it.”

“To tell me to go away?” he asked, in some perplexity.

“No indeed! Do you think I am such a bad friend as that? You must not be so unkind. Do you think I would have begged you so hard to come and stay all summer with us, that I would have left you so often together——”

“You cannot mean that you wish me to marry her!” George exclaimed in great astonishment.

“It would make me very happy,” said Totty gently.

“I am amazed!” exclaimed George. “I do not know what to say—it seems so strange!”

“Does it? It seems so natural to me. Mamie is always first in my mind—whatever can contribute to her happiness in any way—and especially in such a way as this——”

“And she?” George asked.

“She loves you, George—with all her heart.” Totty touched his hand softly. “And she could not love a man whom we should be more glad to see her marry,” she added, putting into her voice all the friendly tenderness she could command.

George let his head sink on his breast. Totty held his hand a moment longer, gave it an infinitesimal squeeze and then withdrew her own, sinking back into her chair with a little sigh as though she had unburdened her heart. For some seconds neither spoke again.

“Cousin Totty,” George said at last, “I believe you are the best friend I have in the world. I can never thank you for all your disinterested kindness.”

Totty smiled sweetly in the dark, partly at the words he used and partly at the hopes she founded upon them.

“It would be strange if I were not,” she said. “I have many reasons for not being your enemy, at all events. I have thought a great deal about you during the last year. Will you let me speak quite frankly?”

“You have every right to say what you think,” George answered gratefully. “You have taken me in when I was in need of all the friendship and kindness you have given me. You have made me a home, you have given me back the power to work, which seemed gone, you have——”

“No, no, George, do not talk of such wretched things. There are hundreds of people who would be only too proud and delighted to have George Winton Wood spend a summer with them—yes, or marry their daughters. You do not seem to realise that—a man of your character, of your rising reputation—not to say celebrity—a man of your qualities is a match for any girl. But that is not what I meant to say. It is something much harder to express, something about which I have never talked to you, and never thought I should. Will you forgive me, if I speak now? It is about Constance Fearing.”

George looked up quickly.

“Provided you say nothing unkind or unjust about her,” he answered without hesitation.

“I?” ejaculated Totty in surprise. “Am I not so fond of her, that I wanted you to marry her? I cannot say more, I am sure. Constance is a noble-hearted girl, a little too sensitive perhaps, but good beyond expression. Yes, she is good. That is just the word. Scrupulous to a degree! She has the most finely balanced conscience I have ever known. Dr. Drinkwater—you know, our dear rector in New York—says that there is no one who does more for the poor, or who takes a greater interest in the church, and that she consults him upon everything, upon every point of duty in her life—it is splendid, you know. I never knew such a girl—and then, so clever! A Lady Bountiful and a Countess Matilda in one! Only—no, I am not going to say anything against her, because there is simply nothing to be said—only I really do not believe that she is the wife for you, dear boy. I do not pretend to say why. There is some reason, some subtle, undefinable reason why you would not suit each other. I do not mean to say that she is vacillating or irresolute. On the contrary, her sensitive conscience is one of the great beauties of her character. But I have always noticed that people who are long in deciding anything irritate you. Is it not true? Of course I cannot understand you, George, but I sometimes feel what you think, almost as soon as you. That is not exactly what I mean, but you understand. That is one reason. There are others, no doubt. Do you know what I think? I believe that Constance Fearing ought to marry one of those splendid young clergymen one hears about, who devote their lives to doing good, and to the poor—and that kind of thing.”

“I daresay,” said George, as Totty paused. The idea was new to him, but somehow it seemed very just. “At all events,” he added, “she ought to marry a better man than I am.”

“Not better—as good in a different way,” suggested Totty. “An especially good man, rather than an especially clever one.”

“I am not especially clever,” George answered. “I have worked harder than most men and have succeeded sooner. That is all.”

“Of course it is your duty to be modest about yourself. We all have our opinions. Some people call that greatness—never mind. The principle is the same. Tell me—you admire her, and all that, but you do not honestly believe that you and she are suited to each other, do you?”

Totty managed her voice so well that she made the question seem natural, and not at all offensive. George considered his reply for a moment before he spoke.

“I think you are right,” he said. “We are not suited to each other.”

Totty breathed more freely, for the moment had been a critical one.

“I was sure of it, though I used to wish it had been otherwise. I used to hope that you would marry her, until I knew you both better—until I saw there was somebody else who was—well—in short, who loves you better. You do not mind my saying it.”

“I am sorry if it is true——”

“Why should you be sorry? Could anything be more natural? I should think that a man would be very glad and very happy to find that he is dearly loved by a thoroughly nice girl——”

“Yes, if——”

“No! I know what you are going to say. If he loves her. My dear George, it is of no use to deny it. You do love Mamie. Any one can see it, though she would die rather than have me think that she believed it. I do not say it is a romantic passion and all that. It is not. You have outgrown that kind of thing, and you are far too sensible, besides. But I do say that you are devotedly attached to her, that you seek her society, that you show how much you like to be alone with her—a thousand things, that we can all see.”

“All” referred to Totty herself, of course, but George was too much disturbed to notice the fact. He could find nothing to say and Totty continued.

“Not that I blame you in the least. I ought to blame myself for bringing you together. I should if I were not so sure that it is the best thing for your happiness as well as for Mamie’s. You two are made for each other, positively made for each other. Mamie is not beautiful, of course—if she were I would not give you a catalogue of her advantages. She is not rich——”

“You forget that I have only my profession,” said George, rather sharply.

“But what a profession—besides if it came to that, we should always wish our daughter to live as she has been accustomed to live. That is not the question. She is not beautiful and she is not rich, but you cannot deny it, George, she has a charm of her own, a grace, a something that a man will never be tired of because he can never find out just what it is, nor just where it lies. That is quite true, is it not?”

“Dear cousin Totty, I deny nothing——”

“No, of course not! You cannot deny that, at least—and then, do you know? You have the very same thing yourself, the something undefinable that a woman likes. Has no one ever told you that?”

“No indeed!” exclaimed George, laughing a little in spite of himself.

“I am quite serious,” said Totty. “Mamie and you are made for each other. There can be no doubt about it, any more than there can be about your loving each other, each in your own way.”

“If it were in the same way——”

“It is not so different. I was thinking of it only the other day. Suppose that several people were in danger at once—in that dreadful river, for instance—you would save her first.”

George glanced sharply at his cousin. The same idea had crossed his own mind.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“Is it not true?”

“Yes—I suppose it is. But I cannot imagine how you guessed——”

“Do you think I am blind?” asked Totty, almost indignantly. “Do you think Mamie does not know it as well as I do? After all these months of devotion! You must think me very dull—the only wonder is that you should not yet have told her so.”

George wondered why she took it for granted that he had not.

“What I should have to tell her would be very hard to say, as it ought to be said,” he answered thoughtfully.

Totty’s manner changed again and she turned her head towards him, lowering her voice and speaking in a tone of sincere sympathy.

“Oh, I know how hard it must be!” she said. “Most of all for you. To say, ‘I love you,’ and then to add, ‘I do not love you in the same way as I once loved another.’ But then, must one add that? Is it not self-evident? Ah no! There is no love like the first, indeed there is not!”

Totty sighed deeply, as though the recollection of some long buried fondness were still dear, and sweet and painful.

“And yet, one does love,” she continued a little more cheerfully. “One loves again, often more truly, if one knew it, and more sincerely than the first time. It is better so—the affection of later years is happier and brighter and more lasting than that other. And it is love, in the best sense of the word, believe me it is.”

If there had been the least false note of insincerity in her voice, George would have detected it. But what Totty attempted to do, she did well, with a consummate appreciation of details and their value which would have deceived a keener man than he. Moreover, he himself was in great doubt. He was really so strongly attracted by Mamie as to know that a feather’s weight would turn the scale. But for the recollection of Constance he would have loved her long ago with a love in which there might have been more of real passion and less of illusion. Mamie was in many ways a more real personage in his appreciation than Constance. Totty had defined the difference between the two very cleverly by what she had said. The more he thought of it, the more ideal Constance seemed to become.

But there was another element at work in his judgment. He was obliged to confess that Totty was right in another of her facts. During the long months of the summer he had undoubtedly acted in a way to make ordinary people believe that he loved Mamie. He had more than once shown that he resented Totty’s presence, and Totty had taken the hint and had gone away, with a readiness he only understood now. He had been very much spoiled by her, but had never supposed that she desired the marriage. It had been enough for him to show that he wished to talk to Mamie without interruption and he had been immediately humoured as he was humoured in everything in that charming establishment. Totty, however, and, of course, poor Mamie herself, had put an especial construction upon all his slightest words and gestures. To use the language of the world, he had compromised the girl, and had made her believe that he was to some extent in love with her, which was infinitely worse. It was very kind of Totty to be so tactful and diplomatic. Honest Sherry Trimm would have asked him his intentions in two words and would have required an answer in one, a mode of procedure which would have been far less agreeable.

“You owe her something, George,” Totty said after a long pause. “She saved your life. You must not break her heart—it would be a poor return.”

“God forbid! Totty, do you think seriously that I have acted in a way to make Mamie believe I love her?”

“I am sure you have—she knew it long ago. You need hardly tell her, she is so sure of it.”

“I am very glad,” George answered. “What will cousin Sherry say to this?”

“Oh, George! How can you ask? You know how fond he is of you—he will be as glad as I if——”

“There shall be no ‘ifs,’” George interrupted. “I will ask Mamie to-morrow.”

He had made up his mind, for he detested uncertainties of all sorts. He felt that however he might compare Mamie with Constance, he was on the verge of some sort of passion for the former, whereas the latter represented something never to be realised, something which, even if offered him now, he could not accept without misgivings and doubts. Since he had made Mamie believe that he loved her, no matter how unintentionally the result had been produced, and since he felt that he could love her in return, and be faithful to her, and, lastly, since her father and mother believed that the happiness of her life depended upon him, it seemed most honourable to disappoint no one, and if it turned out that he was making a sacrifice he would keep it to himself throughout his natural life.

Totty held her breath for a moment after he had made his statement, fearing lest she should utter some involuntary exclamation of delight, too great even for the occasion. Then she rose and came to his side, laid her hands upon his shoulders and touched his dark forehead with her salmon-coloured lips. George remembered that a humming-bird had once brushed his face with its wings, and the one sensation reminded him of the other.

“God bless you, my dear son!” said Totty in accents that would have carried the conviction of sincerity to an angel’s heart.

George pressed her hand warmly, but with an odd feeling that the action was not spontaneous. He felt as though he were doing something that was expected of him, and was doing it as well as he could, without enthusiasm. He looked up in the gloom and felt that something warm fell upon his face.

“Why, cousin Totty, you are crying!” he exclaimed.

“Happy tears,” answered Mrs. Sherrington Trimm in a voice trembling with emotion. Then she turned and swiftly entered the drawing-room, leaving him alone in the verandah in the darkness.

“So the die is cast, and I am to marry Mamie,” he thought, as soon as she was gone.

In the first moments it was hard to realise that he had bound himself by an engagement from which he could not draw back, and that so soon after he had broken with Constance Fearing. Five months had not gone by since the first of May, since he had believed that his life was ruined and his heart broken. What had there been in his love for Constance which had made it unreal from first to last, real only in the moment of disappointment? He found no answer to the question, and he thought of Mamie, his future wife. Yes, Totty was right. So far as it was possible to judge they were suited to each other in all respects except in his own lack of fortune. “Suited” was the very word. He would never feel what he had felt for the other, the tenderness, the devotion, the dependence on her words for his daily happiness—he might own it now, the sweet fear of hurting her or offending her, which he had only half understood. Constance had dominated him during their intercourse, and until he had seen her real weakness. With Mamie it would be different. She clung to him, not he to her. She looked up to him as a superior, he could never worship her as an idol. He was to occupy the shrine henceforth and he was to play the god and smile upon her when she offered incense. There could not be two images in two shrines, smiling and burning perfumes at each other. George smiled at the idea. But there was to be something else, something he had only lately begun to know. He was to be devotedly loved by some one, tenderly thought of, tenderly treated by one who now, at least, held the first place in his heart. That was very different from what he had hitherto received, the perpetual denial of love, the repeated assurances of friendship. He thought of that wonderful expression which he had seen two or three times on Mamie’s face, and he was happy. There was nothing he would not do, nothing he would not sacrifice for the sake of receiving such love as that.

He slept peacefully through the night, undisturbed by visions of future trouble or dreams of coming disappointment. Nor had his mood changed when he awoke in the morning and gazed through the open windows at the trees beyond the river, where Constance’s house was hidden. Would Constance be sorry to hear the news? Probably not. She would meet him with renewed offers of eternal friendship, and would in all probability come to the wedding. She had never felt anything for him. His lip curled scornfully as he turned away.

Early in the morning Totty entered her daughter’s room. There was nothing extraordinary in the visit, and Mamie, who was doing her hair, did not look round, though she greeted her mother with a word of welcome. Totty kissed her with unwonted tenderness, even considering that she was usually demonstrative in her affections.

“Dear child,” she said, “I just came in to see how you had slept. You need not go away,” she added, addressing the maid. “You are a little pale, Mamie. But then you always are and it is becoming to you. What shall you wear to-day? It is very warm again—you might put on white, almost.”

“Conny Fearing always wears white,” Mamie answered.

“Why, she is in mourning of course,” said Mrs. Trimm with some solemnity.

“Is she? For her brother-in-law? Well, she always did, which is the same thing, exactly. She had on a white frock on the day of the accident. I can see her now!”

“Oh then, by all means wear something else,” said Totty with alacrity. “You might try that striped flannel costume—or the skirt with a blouse, you know. That is new.”

“No,” said Mamie with great decision. “I do not believe it is warm at all and I mean to wear my blue serge.”

“Well,” answered Mrs. Trimm, “perhaps it is the most becoming thing you have.”

“Positively, mamma, I have not a thing to wear!” exclaimed Mamie, by sheer force of habit.

“I am sure I have not,” answered her mother with a laugh.

“Oh you, mamma! You have lots of things.”

Totty did not go away until she had assured herself that Mamie was at her best. She knew that it would have been folly to give the girl any warning of what was about to take place, and she was aware that Mamie’s taste in dress was even better than her own, but she had been unable to resist the desire to see her and to go over in her own heart the circumstances of her triumph. She knew also that Mamie would never forgive her if she should discover that her mother had known of George’s intention before George had communicated it to herself, but it seemed very hard to be obliged to wait even a few hours before showing her intense satisfaction at the result of her diplomacy.

During breakfast she was unusually cheerful and talkative, whereas George was exceptionally silent and spoke with an evident effort. Mamie herself had to some extent recovered her spirits, though she was very much ashamed of having made such an exhibition of her feelings on the previous evening. She offered a lame explanation, saying that she had felt suddenly cold and had run up to her room to get something warmer to put on; seeing it was so late, she had not thought it worth while to come down again. Then she changed the subject as quickly as she could and was admirably seconded by her mother in her efforts to make conversation. George’s face betrayed nothing. It was impossible to say whether he believed her story or not.

“I suppose you are going to work all the morning,” observed Mrs. Trimm as they rose from the table.

“I am not sure,” George answered, looking steadily at her for a second. “At all events I will have a turn in the garden before I set to. Will you come, Mamie?” he asked, turning to his cousin.

For some minutes they walked away from the house in silence. George was embarrassed and had not made up his mind what he should say. He did not look at his cousin’s face, but as he glanced down before him he was conscious of her graceful movement at his side. Perfect motion had always had an especial charm for him, and at the present moment he was glad to be charmed. Presently they found themselves in a shady place beneath certain old trees, out of sight of the garden. George stopped suddenly, and Mamie stopping also, looked at him in some little surprise.

“Mamie,” he said, in the best voice he could find, “do you love me?”

“Better than anything in the world,” answered the young girl. Her lips grew slowly white and there was a startled look in her fearless grey eyes.

“You saved my life. Will you take it—and keep it?”

He looked to her for an answer. A supreme joy came into her face, then shivered like a broken mirror under a blow, and gave way to an agonised fear.

“Oh, do not laugh at me!” she cried, in broken and beseeching tones.

“Laugh at you, dear? God forbid! I am asking you to be my wife.”

“Oh no! It is not true—you do not love me—it never can be true!” But as she spoke, the day of happiness dawned again in her eyes—as a summer sun rising through a sweet shower of raindrops—and broke and flooded all her face with gladness.

“I love you, and it is quite true,” he answered.

The girl had for months concealed the great passion of her life as well as she could; she had borne, with all the patience she could command, the daily bitter disappointment of finding him always the same towards her; she had suffered much and had hidden her sufferings bravely, but the sudden happiness was more than she could control. As he held her in his arms, he felt her weight suddenly as though she had fallen, and he saw her eyelids droop and her long straight lips part slowly over her gleaming teeth. She was not beautiful, and he knew it as he looked at her white unconscious face. But she loved him as he had never been loved before, and in that moment he loved her also. Supporting her with one arm, he held up her head with his other hand and kissed her again and again, with a passion he had never felt. Very slowly the colour returned to her lips, and then her eyes opened. There was no surprise in them, for she was hardly conscious that she had fainted.

“Have I been long so?” she asked faintly as the look of life and joy came back.

“Only a moment, darling,” he answered.

“And it is to be so for ever—oh, it is too much, too good, too great. How can I believe so much in one day?”

It was long before they turned back again towards the house. The sun rose higher and higher, and the winnowed light fell upon them through the leaves reddened by the autumn colours that were already spreading over the woods, from tree to tree, from branch to branch, from leaf to leaf, like one long sunset lasting many days. But they sat side by side not heeding the climbing sun nor the march of the noiseless hours. Their soft voices mingled lovingly with each other and with the murmur of the scarcely stirring breeze. Very reluctantly they rose at last to return, their arms twined about each other until they saw the gables of the house rising above them out of the rich mass of red, and orange, and yellow, and brown, and green that crowned the maples, the oaks and the sycamores. One last long kiss under the shade, and they were out upon the hard brown earth of the drive, in sight of the windows, walking civilly side by side with the distance of half a pace between them. Totty, the discreet, had watched for them until she had caught a glimpse of their figures through the shrubbery and had then retired within to await the joyful news.

Mamie disappeared as soon as they entered the house, glad to be alone if she could not be with the man she loved. But George went straight to her mother in the little morning-room where she generally sat. She looked up from her writing, as though she had been long absorbed in it, then suddenly smiled and held out her hand. George pressed it with more sincerity than he had been able to find for the same demonstration of friendliness on the previous evening.

“I am very glad I took your advice,” he said. “I am a very happy man. Mamie has accepted me.”

“Has she taken the whole morning to make up her mind about so simple a matter?” asked Totty archly.

“Well, not all the morning,” George answered. “We had one or two ideas to exchange afterwards. Totty—no, I cannot call my mother-in-law Totty, it is too absurd! Cousin Charlotte—will that do? Very well, cousin Charlotte, you must telegraph for Sherry’s—I beg his pardon, for Mr. Trimm’s consent. Where is he?”

“Here—see for yourself,” said Totty holding up to his eyes a sheet of paper on which was written a short cable.

“Trimm. Carlsbad, Bohemia. Mamie engaged George Wood. Wire consent. Totty.”

“You see how sure I was of her. I wrote this while you were out there—it is true, you gave me time.”

“Sure of her, and of your husband,” said George, surprised by the form of the message.

“Oh, I have no doubts about him,” answered Mrs. Trimm with a light laugh. “He thinks you are perfection, you know.”

The reply came late that night, short, sharp and business-like.

“Fix wedding-day. Returning. Sherry.”

It was read by Totty with a sort of delirious scream of triumph, the first genuine expression she had permitted herself since her efforts had been crowned with success.

“It is too good to be believed,” said Mamie aloud, as she laid her head on the pillow.

“I would never have believed it,” said George thoughtfully, as he turned from his open window where he had been standing an hour.