Alice Deringham still drew back from him.  “It was your own, and you do not quite know all yet,” she said.  “I am a penniless girl——­”

Alton laughed exultantly as he stooped and caught her wrist.  “All that I want the most you give, and when you sent me away I knew it was mine,” he said.  “But Somasco, and the silver up yonder, is mine, too, and that when we have redeemed Carnaby will be quite enough for two.”

Alice Deringham made no further resistance, but glanced up into his eyes as he drew her to him, and then felt his arm close round her with a great contentment.

It was half an hour later when she met Nellie Seaforth in a corridor, and the latter stretched her hands out impulsively and kissed her.

“You need not tell me, and I am very glad,” she said.  “Of course you will be happy.  He is a good man.”

Alice Deringham coloured in a fashion Nellie Seaforth had not believed her capable of, and there was a depth of grave tenderness in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said simply.  “And because of his goodness I must try to be a better woman.”

She passed on, and Nellie Seaforth, who found her husband, smiled at him.  “It has all come right, and I don’t think Harry will be sorry, though he might have been had it happened earlier,” she said,

“That strikes me as a little mixed,” said Seaforth dryly.

Mrs. Seaforth shook her head at him.  “No.  It’s quite plain,” she said.  “I think Miss Deringham has been taught a good deal, and whatever she may have been she will only be lovable as Mrs. Alton.”

Seaforth smiled gravely.  “Now I understand—­fellow-feeling prompts me to, and of course you are right,” he said.  “There must be a special blessing on those who, like you and Harry, ask very little, and give with an open hand.”

THE END