“It was so hot, I walked about outside.  What a frightful storm.”

“Yes, perfectly awful.  Were you exposed to the worst of it?”

“No, I was here.”

He shook his head, smiled, and went into the next room, knowing that when he returned to unlock his office she was not in the building, and that he had seen her coming up the railway track.  The bustle of preparation soon began; the baggage wagons thundered up to the platform, porters called to one another; passengers collected in the waiting-room, carriages and omnibuses dashed about; then at 2:50 the long train of north bound cars swept in.  With her shawl and basket in one hand, and the odorous bunches of chrysanthemums clasped in the other, Beryl stepped upon the platform.  She found a seat at an open window, and made herself comfortable; placing her feet upon the basket which contained the jewels that constituted her sole earthly fortune.  The bell rang, the train glided on, and as it passed the office door, she saw the agent watching her, with a strangely suspicious expression.

The cars wound around a curve, and she sank back and shut her eyes, rejoicing in the belief that her mission to “Elm Bluff,” and its keen humiliation, were forever ended.

CHAPTER IV.

“I concede that point.  Your lover is amply endowed with brains, and moreover has a vast amount of shrewdness, all that is requisite to secure success and eminence in his profession; but to-day, it seems as much a matter of astonishment to me—­as it certainly was six months ago, when first you told me of your engagement—­that you, Leo Gordon, could ever fancy just such a man as Lennox Dunbar.”

“I am very sorry, Aunt Patty, that he finds no favor in your eyes, and I think he is aware of the fact that he is not in your good graces.  You both look so vaguely uncomfortable when thrown into each other’s presence; but for my sake you must try to like Lennox.”

Miss Gordon bent her pretty head over a square of ruby velvet, whereon she was embroidering a wreath of pansies, and the delicate flush on her fair face, deepened to a vivid carnation.

“My likes or dislikes are a matter of moonshine, in comparison with your happiness.  Because you are an orphan, I feel a sort of responsibility; and sometimes I am not exactly easy over the account of my stewardship I must render to my poor dead Marcia.  The more I see of your lover, the more I dread your marriage.  A man who makes no profession of religious belief, is an unsafe guardian of any woman’s peace of mind.  You who have been reared almost in the shadow of the altar, accustomed to hearing grace at your meals, to family prayers, to strict observance of our ritual, will feel isolated indeed, when transplanted to the home of a godless man, who rarely darkens the door of the sanctuary.  ’Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.’”

Miss Patty Dent took off her spectacles, wiped them with the string of her white muslin cap, and adjusting them firmly on her nose, plucked nervously at the fluted lace ruffles around her wrists.