Next day is born, lives, grows, deepens; and, as the first cold breath of even declares itself, Dorian rides down the avenue that leads to Gowran.

Miss Peyton is not at home (he has asked first for her, as in duty bound), and Miss Broughton is in the grounds somewhere. This is vague. The man offers warmly to discover her and bring her back to the house to receive Mr. Branscombe; but this Mr. Branscombe will not permit. Having learned the direction in which she is gone, he follows it, and glides into a region wherein only fairies should have right to dwell.

A tangled mass of grass, and blackberry, and fern; a dying sunlight, deep and tender; soft beds of tawny moss. Myriad bluebells are alive, and, spreading themselves, far and wide, in one rich carpeting (whose color puts to shame the pale blue of the heavenly vault above), make one harmonious blending with their green straight leaves.

Far as the eye can reach they spread, and, as the light and wanton wind stoops to caress them, shake their tiny bells with a coquettish grace, and fling forth perfume to him with a lavish will.

The solemn trees, that "seem to hold mystical converse with each other," look down upon the tranquil scene that, season after season, changes, fades away, and dies, only to return again, fairer and fresher than of yore. The fir-trees tower upwards, and gleam green-black against the sky. Upon some topmost boughs the birds are chanting a pÆan of their own; while through this "wilderness of sweets"—far down between its deep banks (that are rich with trailing ivy and drooping bracken)—runs a stream, a slow, delicious, lazy stream, that glides now over its moss-grown stones, and anon flashes through some narrow ravine dark and profound. As it runs it babbles fond love-songs to the pixies that, perchance, are peeping out at it, through their yellow tresses, from shady curves and sun-kissed corners.

It is one of May's divinest efforts,—a day to make one glad and feel that it is well to be alive. Yet Branscombe, walking through this fairy glen, though conscious of its beauty, is conscious, too, that in his heart he knows a want not to be satisfied until Fate shall again bring him face to face with the girl with whom he had parted so unamicably the night before.

Had she really meant him not to call to-day? Will she receive him coldly? Is it even possible to find her in such an absurd place as this, where positively everything seems mixed up together in such a hopeless fashion that one can't see farther than one's nose? Perhaps, after all, she is not here, has returned to the house, and is now——

Suddenly, across the bluebells, there comes to him a fresh sweet voice, that thrills him to his very heart. It is hers; and there, in the distance, he can see her, just where the sunlight falls athwart the swaying ferns.

She is sitting down, and is leaning forward, having taken her knees well into her embrace. Her broad hat is tilted backward, so that the sunny straggling hair upon her forehead can be plainly seen. Her gown is snow-white, with just a touch of black at the throat and wrists; a pretty frill of soft babyish lace caresses her throat.

Clear and happy, as though it were a free bird's her voice rises on the wind and reaches Branscombe, and moves him as no other voice ever had—or will ever again have—power to move him.

The kind wind brings the tender passionate love-song to him, and repeats it in his ear as it hurries onward: "My dove, my dear." How exactly the words suit her! he says them over and over again to himself, almost losing the rest of the music which she is still breathing forth to the evening air.

"My life! my fate!" Is she his life,—his fate? The idea makes him tremble. Has he set his whole heart upon a woman who perhaps can never give him hers in return? The depth, the intensity of the passion with which he repeats the words of her song astonishes and perplexes him vaguely. Is she indeed his fate?

He is quite close to her now; and she, turning round to him her lovely flower-like face, starts perceptibly, and, springing to her feet, confronts him with a little frown, and a sudden deepening of color that spreads from chin to brow.

At this moment he knows the whole truth. Never has she appeared so desirable in his eyes. Life with her means happiness more than falls to the lot of most; life without her, an interminable blank.

"I thought I told you not to come," says Miss Broughton, still frowning.

"I am sure you did not," contradicts he, eagerly; "you said, rather unkindly, I must confess,—but still you said it,—'Catch me if you can.' That was a command. I have obeyed it. And I have caught you."

"You knew I was not speaking literally," says Miss Broughton, with some wrath. "The idea of your supposing I really meant you to catch me! You couldn't have thought it."

"Well, what was I to think? You certainly said it. So I came. I believed"—humbly—"it was the best thing to do."

"Yes; and you found me sitting—as—I was, and singing at the top of my voice. How I dislike people"—says Miss Broughton, with fine disgust—"who steal upon other people unawares!"

"I didn't steal; I regularly trampled"—protests Branscombe, justly indignant—"right over the moss and ferns and the other things, as hard as ever I could. If bluebells won't crackle like dead leaves it isn't my fault, is it? I hadn't the ordering of them!"

"Oh, yes, it is, every bit your fault," persists she, wilfully, biting, with enchanting grace largely tinctured with viciousness, the blade of grass she is holding.

Silence, of the most eloquent, that lasts for a full minute, even until the unoffending grass is utterly consumed.

"Perhaps you would rather I went away," says Mr. Branscombe, stiffly, seeing she will not speak. He is staring at her, and is apparently hopelessly affronted.

"Well, perhaps I would," returns she, coolly, without condescending to look at him.

"Good-by,"—icily.

"Good-by,"—in precisely the same tone, and without changing her position half an inch.

Branscombe turns away with a precipitancy that plainly betokens hot haste to be gone. He walks quickly in the home direction, and gets as far as the curve in the glen without once looking back. So far the hot haste lasts, and is highly successful; then it grows cooler; the first deadly heat dies away, and, as it goes, his steps grow slower and still slower. A severe struggle with pride ensues, in which pride goes to the wall, and then he comes to a standstill.

Though honestly disgusted with his own want of firmness, he turns and gazes fixedly at the small white-gowned figure standing, just as he had left her, among the purple bells.

Yet not exactly as he had left her: her lips are twitching now, her lids have fallen over her eyes. Even as he watches, the soft lips part, and a smile comes to them,—an open, irrepressible smile, that deepens presently into a gay, mischievous laugh, that rings sweetly, musically upon the air.

It is too much. In a moment he is beside her again, and is gazing down on her with angry eyes.

"Something is amusing you," he says. "Is it me?"

"Yes," says the spoiled beauty, moving back from him, and lifting her lids from her laughing eyes to cast upon him a defiant glance.

"I dare say I do amuse you," exclaims he, wrathfully, goaded to deeper anger by the mockery of her regard. "I have no doubt you can find enjoyment in the situation, but I cannot! I dare say"—passionately—"you think it capital fun to make me fall in love with you,—to play with my heart until you can bind me hand and foot as your slave,—only to fling me aside and laugh at my absurd infatuation when the game has grown old and flavorless."

He has taken her hand whether she will or not, and, I think, at this point, almost unconsciously, he gives her a gentle but very decided little shake.

"But there is a limit to all things," he goes on, vehemently, "and here, now, at this moment, you shall give me a plain answer to a plain question I am going to ask you."

He has grown very pale, and his nostrils are slightly dilated. She has grown very pale, too, and is shrinking from him. Her lips are white and trembling; her beautiful eyes are large and full of an undefined fear. The passion of his tone has carried her away with it, and has subdued within her all desire for mockery or mirth. Her whole face has changed its expression, and has become sad and appealing. This sudden touch of fear and entreaty makes her so sweet that Dorian's anger melts before it, and the great love of which it was part again takes the upper hand.

Impulsively he takes her in his arms, and draws her close to him, as though he would willingly shield her from all evil and chase the unspoken fear from her eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," he says, earnestly. "I deserve it, I know. I should not have spoken to you as I have done, but I could not help it. You made me so miserable—do you know how miserable?—that I forgot myself. Darling, don't turn from me; speak to me; forgive me!"

This sudden change from vehement reproach to as vehement tenderness frightens Georgie just a little more than the anger of a moment since. Laying her hand upon his chest, she draws back from him; and he, seeing she really wishes to get away from him, instantly releases her.

As if fascinated, however, she never removes her gaze from his, although large tears have risen, and are shining in her eyes.

"You don't hate me? I won't believe that," says Branscombe, wretchedly. "Say you will try to love me, and that you will surely marry me."

At this—feeling rather lost, and not knowing what else to do—Georgie covers her face with her hands, and bursts out crying.

It is now Branscombe's turn to be frightened, and he does his part to perfection. He is thoroughly and desperately frightened.

"I won't say another word," he says, hastily; "I won't, indeed. My dearest, what have I said that you should be so distressed? I only asked you to marry me."

"Well, I'm sure I don't know what more you could have said," sobs she, still dissolved in tears, and in a tone full of injury.

"But there wasn't any harm in that," protests he, taking one of her hands from her face and pressing it softly to his lips. "It is a sort of thing" (expansively) "one does every day."

"Do you do it every day?"

"No: I never did it before. And" (very gently) "you will answer me, won't you?"

No answer, however, is vouchsafed.

"Georgie, say you will marry me."

But Georgie either can't or won't say it; and Dorian's heart dies within him.

"Am I to understand by your silence that you fear to pain me?" he says, at length, in a low voice. "Is it impossible to you to love me? Well, do not speak. I can see by your face that the hope I have been cherishing for so many weeks has been a vain one. Forgive me for troubling you: and believe I shall never forget how tenderly you shrank from telling me you could never return my love."

Again he presses her hand to his lips; and she, turning her face slowly to his, looks up at him. Her late tears were but a summer shower, and have faded away, leaving no traces as they passed.

"But I didn't mean one word of all that," she says, naÏvely, letting her long lashes fall once more over her eyes.

"Then what did you mean?" demands he, with some pardonable impatience. "Quite the contrary, all through?"

"N—ot quite,"—with hesitation.

"At least, that some day you will be my wife?"

"N—ot altogether."

"Well, you can't be half my wife," says Mr. Branscombe promptly. "Darling, darling, put me out of my misery, and say what I want you to say."

"Well, then, yes." She gives the promise softly, shyly, but without the faintest touch of any deeper, tenderer emotion. Had Dorian been one degree less in love with her, he could have hardly failed to notice this fact. As it is, he is radiant, in a very seventh heaven of content.

"But you must promise me faithfully never to be unkind to me again," says Georgie, impressively, laying a finger on his lips.

"Unkind?"

"Yes; dreadfully unkind: just think of all the terrible things you said, and the way you said them. Your eyes were as big as half-crowns, and you looked exactly as if you would like to eat me. Do you know, you reminded me of Aunt Elizabeth!"

"Oh, Georgie!" says Branscombe, reproachfully. He has grown rather intimate with Aunt Elizabeth and her iniquities by this time, and fully understands that to be compared with her hardly tends to raise him in his beloved's estimation.

There is silence between them after this, that lasts a full minute,—a long time for lovers freshly made.

"What are you thinking of?" asks Dorian, presently, bending to look tenderly into her downcast eyes. Perhaps he is hoping eagerly that she has been wasting a thought upon him.

"I shall never have to teach those horrid lessons again," she says, with a quick sigh of relief.

If he is disappointed, he carefully conceals it. He laughs, and, lifting her exquisite face, kisses her gently.

"Never," he says, emphatically. "When you go home, tell Mr. Redmond all about it; and to-morrow Clarissa will go down to the vicarage and bring you up to Gowran, where you must stay until we are married."

"I shall like that," says Georgie, with a sweet smile. "But, Mr. Branscombe——"

"Who on earth is Mr. Branscombe?" asks Dorian. "Don't you know my name yet?"

"I do. I think it is almost the prettiest name I ever heard,—Dorian."

"Darling! I never thought it a nice name before; but now that you have called me by it, I can feel its beauty. But I dare say if I had been christened Jehoshaphat I should, under these circumstances, think just the same. Well, you were going to say——?"

"Perhaps Clarissa will not care to have me for so long."

"So long? How long? By the by, perhaps she wouldn't; so I suppose we had better be married as soon as ever we can."

"I haven't got any clothes," says Miss Broughton; at which they both laugh gayly, as though it were the merriest jest in the world.

"You terrify me," says Branscombe. "Let me beg you will rectify such a mistake as soon as possible."

"We have been here a long time," says Georgie, suddenly, glancing at the sun, that is almost sinking out of sight behind the solemn firs.

"It hasn't been ten minutes," says Mr. Branscombe, conviction making his tone brilliant.

"Oh, nonsense!" says Georgie. "I am sure it must be quite two hours since you came."

As it has been barely one, this is rather difficult to endure with equanimity.

"How long you have found it!" he says, with some regret. He is honestly pained, and his eyes grow darker. Looking at him, she sees what she has done, and, though ignorant of the very meaning of the word "love," knows that she has hurt him more than he cares to confess.

"I have been happy,—quite happy," she says, sweetly, coloring warmly as she says it. "You must not think I have found the time you have been with me dull or dreary. Only, I am afraid Clarissa will miss me."

"I should think any one would miss you," says Dorian, impulsively. He smiles at her as he speaks; but there is a curious mingling of sadness and longing and uncertainty in his face. Laying one arm round her, with his other hand he draws her head down on his breast.

"At least, before we go, you will kiss me once," he says, entreatingly. All the gayety—the gladness—has gone from his voice; only the deep and lasting love remains. He says this, too, hesitatingly, as though half afraid to demand so great a boon.

"Yes; I think I should like to kiss you," says Georgie, kindly; and then she raises herself from his embrace, and, standing on tiptoe, places both hands upon his shoulders, and with the utmost calmness lays her lips on his.

"Do you know," she says, a moment later, in no wise disconcerted because of the warmth of the caress he has given her in exchange for hers,—"do you know, I never remember kissing any one in all my life before, except poor papa, and Clarissa, and you."

Even at this avowal she does not blush. Were he her brother, or an aged nurse, she could scarcely think less about the favor she has just conferred upon the man who is standing silently regarding her, puzzled and disappointed truly, but earnestly registering a vow that sooner or later, if faithful love can accomplish it, he will make her all his own, in heart and soul.

Not that he has ever yet gone so deeply into the matter as to tell himself the love is all on his own side. Instinctively he shrinks from such inward confession. It is only when he has parted from her, and is riding quietly homeward through the wistful gloaming, that he remembers, with a pang, how, of all the thousand and one things asked and answered, one alone has been forgotten. He has never desired of her whether she loves him.