At last they got out of that room into the street, and home to the private hotel. Here they found word awaiting for them that Miss Osborne would not appear until dinner-time, and that Miss Gordon was trying to get a little sleep. Upon hearing this the two men looked blank. There was, however, no appeal; so Osborne went to his room to write letters, and Nevill said he'd go and look up his Indian geography. Osborne was restless, unhappy. He did not know how to describe his condition to himself. There was a conflict in his mind, but he could not analyse it so as to determine what were the contending forces. That girl had sat up all last night, she had something of moment to tell him, she was resting, and he could not see her, and he wanted to see her. He felt cold and wretched and forlorn without her. He should not be able to live a fortnight without seeing her. If she went away now he should follow her, even if she bade him not. He should follow her afar off. He should go to the towns she went to, and walk about the streets all day in the hope of seeing her now and then. He should not intrude upon her, but when he had found out where she stayed, he should walk up and down till well into the night, watching over her. Who could tell but that some great emergency might arise, in which he, armed by love with the strength of ten, might save her! The maddest flames that ever burned could not keep him back from the door behind which she was threatened. Had all these old men left that place yet, and was that bone lying there stark upon that table in that vacant hushed room? Or was some old man, the wood destined to form whose coffin was now seasoned in the timber-yard and ready for making-up, holding an inquest on that relic of the past, and founding on that piece of God's work an indictment against the faith He had revealed to man? It was monstrous. Monstrous! Letters! He could write no letters to-day. He could not keep his mind fixed on any idea for five minutes. He could not sit still at the table. It was impossible for him to concentrate his mind on anything but the matter uppermost in his thoughts. He would allow to no man that his affection for his old Stratford friends had cooled in the smallest degree; but then he was now consumed by a great passion, and he had no leisure for ordinary correspondence. Time wore wearily on, and at last half-past five came, and Osborne descended to the drawing-room. Here he found Nevill alone. He said, 'You must look sharp, Osborne, if you want to catch this post; it's just half-past five.' 'Unfortunately I have nothing for it. I did not write a line.' 'By Jove! Must be something in the atmosphere. Yours is exactly my case. I went to look up Indian geography, and never opened a book.' 'What did you do?' 'Went to sleep.' 'To sleep! I wish I could have gone.' 'Your conscience isn't good enough to allow you, Osborne. You know very well you are afraid to face facts, and that daunts you.' 'I am not afraid to face facts. But I do not care for things which are called facts and which are fictions.' 'All right, my dear fellow; don't get excited over the matter.' 'But I assure you, you do me wrong. I have not only the courage of my opinions, but the courage to hear any other man's opinions.' 'I am not a reading man. But I always carry a few books with me. If you care to go more deeply into the thing, you are welcome to a loan of the few I have. I warn you they are not consolatory.' 'I don't want consolation or the obstinacy of the blind. I am much interested in all you say, and should be very glad to read the books you offer.' 'Mind, I warn you before you start. You must be prepared for anything.' 'No fact can affect what is true, and I am prepared to face truth.' 'Very well, you shall have the books when we come back to-night. Here's Miss Gordon, looking more charming than ever.' At that moment she entered the room, wearing the Giovanni Bellini hat. The look of fatigue had disappeared. Once more her eyes were lighted up with those mysterious fires--once more the rich colour was in her cheeks. Osborne's heart bounded at sight of her; all the gloom and dullness of that day faded out of his mind at the spectacle of her youth and beauty. Who but a fool would bother himself about who had lived nine thousand years ago, when he might rest his eyes on such a form and such a face as this? Who would care for the voice of science or of history, when such a voice as hers was waiting at his ears? 'Miss Osborne will not be down for about twenty minutes. Her watch was stopped, and she did not think it was so late,' she said as she came up the room towards the young men. 'Osborne,' said Nevill ruefully, 'you really ought to get your sister's watch looked after. Most serious consequences often arise from watches being slow.' 'She gave it to me, Mr Osborne,' said the girl, holding out her hand as she spoke, 'to take to you, and get it repaired. She thinks the mainspring must be broken.' 'Allow me to look,' interposed Nevill. 'I'm no end of a swell at watches. A fellow who is always kicking about must know a lot about watches. When you are out West, you don't always care to ask Dog's Tail or Sitting Bull what he thinks of the sanitary condition of your watch. No, it's not the mainspring. The mainspring is all right. Stop, there's a jeweller's just at the end of the Row. I'll run out and let him have a look at it. Perhaps he can put it right before Miss Osborne comes down. I shall be back in twenty minutes or a little less.' As he spoke he left the room. When he found himself in the passage he looked around furtively. No one was in view. He hastily raised the watch to his lips and kissed it, whispering,-- 'I wanted that; and there was no good in my staying and spoiling sport.' When he had gone, Miss Gordon moved still closer to where Osborne sat spellbound by admiration. Insensibly he rose and held out his hand. She gave him hers. 'I never saw you looking so lovely before,' he said slowly--he retained her hand, and kept his eyes fixed on her face--'never.' 'I am glad to hear you say so,' she answered gently. She looked up at him for an instant, and blushed and smiled. 'Do you like this hat as well to-day as the first time you saw it?' 'I like the owner a thousand times better.' 'You know what I told you?' 'I have forgotten nothing you have ever told me, child.' 'You recollect I said if I put on that hat I should put on my saucy manner?' 'I recollect all you said, child. What of it?' 'You would be sorry if I put this hat off for ever?' 'It becomes you very well.' 'You would be sorry if I put away my saucy manner for ever?' 'Your sweeter manner becomes you better.' 'This morning, when I was looking at the sky, I saw all at once how foolish I had been, and how wise you are.' 'My child, my child, my precious child! My God, I thank Thee. You will never take away from me your sweeter manner?' 'No.' 'You will never take away from me this sweetest hand?' 'No.' 'Sweet is the kiss that comes alone with willingness. My love, my love, my life, my life, my child, my darling child, my wife! Does that word "wife" affright you, Marie?' 'No.'

* * * * * * * * * *

He knew he could not sleep that night, so did not undress when he went to his room. For awhile he walked up and down in suppressed excitement. This was the most important day of his life. She, whom his heart had set above all other earthly prizes, had consented to be his for ever. Intoxicating thought! For ever! He should now be specially privileged to see her every day. Every day, until she became his finally, and then no power on earth could take her from him for an hour. His own, his darling, his most beautiful and amiable Marie. He should not call her Marie. It had an unfamiliar, foreign sound. But how sweet and dutiful and homely sounded Mary! It was the gentlest and the dearest name borne by woman. His gentlest and his dearest love. What a gift bounteous Providence had bestowed on him that day! All life ought to be one long thanksgiving for this rich boon. When morning came, and she entered the breakfast-room and he went to her--to her, his most dear love--and their eyes met and they looked with a new meaning into the face of one another, what profound, what sober joy! He would not hold her hand unduly, but press it and release it, and thank her again with his eyes. And all through the time, when others were by, they would have secret signals of love confessed, and these signals would be invisible or else unintelligible to anyone but themselves. And when they were alone--when she and he were alone! Oh, priceless privilege to be alone with her, and free to speak to her of love, and sit beside her as a lover might, and draw the dear form close to him, and kiss her lips! Hold her to him and say no word, but feel through all his nature the one supreme emotion welling up continually, each moment seeming richer and richer as it came, and in his mind only one thought, 'It is she! It is she!' Sleep? He could not sleep now. Those who had dull humdrum lives might sleep; but he--he, with all this joy for the present, this anticipation for the future, how could he sleep? No, no. No sleep for him to-night. He had never before regretted he did not smoke. If what smokers said about tobacco was true, it would be delightful to sit here now before the fire, and while looking at her face through the halo lent by a pipe, count the strikings of the clocks, and mark the lessening time that separated her from him. Read? No. He didn't think he could read. Verse was out of the question. His life now was a poem, and he should be able to see beauty in nothing that did not resemble her--that she did not share. Ah, so Nevill had sent him those promised books. They were all new to him, He would look through them. They might make him sleepy. No doubt, if they contained any such absurdities as Nevill had told him, they would amuse him or put him to sleep. He wished he could go to sleep. Half-a-dozen books lay on the dressing-table. He turned them over for a few minutes and then selected one. It was full of diagrams and other drawings. He amused himself for a few minutes looking at these. His eye caught the word 'love.' This was apropos of his condition; and, with a smile of incredulous wonder on his face, he turned to read what the author had to say on the subject. Before he had read half-a-dozen pages he threw the book down with contempt. He took up another. This proved too technical for him. He could not understand what he read. He put that away quietly. Next he found a cheerful-looking book of which he had heard, but never seen. It was in the line of natural history, and yet unlike any natural history hitherto published. He opened it and began to read. It interested him at once. He read rapidly. He flew over the pages. This was the most remarkable book which had ever fallen into his hands. He became wholly absorbed in it. He turned the leaves and turned the leaves as though he were looking for some marked passage, not reading the printed words. This book fascinated him as no book had had power to do before. It was a poem of facts. Here were wonders he had never dreamed of paraded before his eyes, not out of the imagination of a poet, but out of God's great storehouse, Nature. Here were vast truths of Nature brought home to the everyday pathways of men. His face grew pale, and his eyes blazed. He did not hear the clocks strike. He took no heed of time. He rushed through the book at so great a rate, he could not pause to think or to regard himself. It was close to five o'clock when he finished the last chapter of that book. He felt that sleep had drawn further off than ever. Again he paced up and down the room. His love. His Mary. His wife that was to be. Close to five only! Would night never pass until he should see her again? In love hours seemed as long as in childhood. The hour a child is kept in school when the others have gone seems an hour of infinite pleasant possibilities to the unfortunate prisoner. The hour a lover is separated from his newly-won mistress seems more spacious still, for love crowds more joy into a minute than childhood into an hour. No sleep. No rest. Nothing else to read. Yes. Another book. Another book by the same author too! That was fortunate. No doubt it would be more interesting than the last. It dealt with a more interesting subject--Man. For half-an-hour he read here and there. This time, before he had finished the first chapter, his face had flushed, his manner become excited. At last he let the book fall to the ground, and cried, in a suppressed voice,-- 'What abomination is this! What monstrous blasphemy! Man the accidental descendant of the ape! Why is not this book burned by the common hangman? How can any printer and publisher be got so base as to lend themselves to this impious affront upon Heaven? Oh God, that men placed by Thee upon this earth of Thine, should defile it and outrage Thee with such heinous thoughts! Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good-will.' He drew back the curtain of his window, placed a chair to the window, put out the light, and sat down by the window, and looked out upon London in the hour of that greatest darkness, the hour before the dawn. Then he had a vision, and later on a dream.