Nina stood leaning against a heavy table, and Derby stood near her with his hands in his pockets and his attention engrossed on the floor.  Both seemed incapable of speaking or moving, as though a hypnotic spell had fallen upon them.  Twice, while her aunt and uncle were in the room, Derby had looked at her with an expression that set Nina’s heart beating, but now they were alone it had entirely vanished and he kept his head persistently turned away.  She wondered how she could ever have failed to find his profile splendid.  But he seemed so detached, so bafflingly absorbed, that all the old ache that she had felt that day when he had advised her to marry Billy Dalton—­and since—­came suffocatingly back.  The old doubt suddenly gripped her—­could her aunt be mistaken?

Finally, it came to her, intuitively, that her whole future was hanging on this moment, and the impulse was overwhelming to forget that she was the woman.  It seemed that she must herself force the issue and end the doubt, at all hazards—­this doubt which hammered at the door of her intellect and yet which her heart refused stubbornly to accept.

“Jack”—­she tried hard to carry out her resolve not to let the false pride of a moment perhaps spoil her whole life; but the inborn reserve of generations of womanhood rebelled.  In her uncertainty and anguish each moment of silence seemed weighted into leaden despair, but she was utterly unable to say what she had intended.  At last her lips parted and, like the wail of a lost child, “Jack——­” she cried.  It was all she could say before her eyes filled and a queer little gulp came into her throat; then, with superhuman effort yet hardly articulate, came the whisper, “H-ave you n-othing to say—­to me?”

All at once he turned and looked at her—­looked again and caught her by the shoulders.  The love and ardor of which the princess had spoken flamed unmistakably in his expression now—­she saw him swallow hard, and it seemed to her as though her very soul were wandering lost in the blue spaces of his eyes as they searched hers, and then through it all his voice came huskily.

“Nina!”

For another long, intense moment he gazed at her earnestly, then “Nina!  Nina!” he cried again, the wonder breaking through his tone.  “Do you understand—­do you mean what you are looking?  Do you love me like—­that?”

She tried to answer, but could not, though a little smile quivered in the corner of her mouth, and the dimple in her cheek was softly visible.  Then she looked up again through her tears.  A radiance indescribable lit the man’s face, making his rugged features beautiful—­then swiftly he stooped and gathered her to his heart.

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes: 

Obvious punctuation errors corrected.

Page 18, “personailty” changed to “personality” (personality to the mind).