Without preface or greeting Junius approached him, and said:  “I have taken your message to Miss March, and have brought you one in return.  You are accepted.”

Lawrence pushed back his chair, and stared blankly at the other.  “What do you mean?” he presently asked.

“I mean what I say,” said Keswick.  “Miss March has accepted you.”

A crowd of emotions rushed through the brain of Lawrence Croft; joy was among them, but it was a joy that was jostled and shaken and pushed, this way and that.  “I do not understand,” he said.  “I did not expect such a decisive message.  I supposed she might send me some encouragement, some—.  Why didn’t she see me before she left?”

“I am not here to explain her actions if I could,” said Junius, who had not sat down.  “She said:  ‘Tell him I accept him.’  That is all.  Good morning.”

“But, stop!” cried Lawrence, on his feet again.  “You must tell me more than that.  Did you say to her only what I said to you?  How did it affect her?”

“Oh,” said Junius, turning suddenly at the door, “I forgot that you asked me to observe her mood.  Well, she was very angry.”

“With me?” cried Lawrence.

“With me,” said Junius.  And closing the door behind him, he strode away.

The accepted lover sat down.  He had never spoken more truly than when he said he did not understand it.  “Is she really mine?” he exclaimed.  And with his eyes fixed on the blank wall over the mantel-piece, he repeated over and over again:  “Is she mine?  Is she really mine?” He had well developed mental powers, but the work of setting this matter straight and plain was too difficult for him.

If she had sent him some such message as this:  “I am very angry with you, but some day you can come and explain yourself to me;” his heart would have leaped for joy.  He would have believed that his peace had been made, and that he had only to go to her to call her his own.  Now his heart desired to leap with joy, but it did not seem to know how to do it.  The situation was such an anomalous one.  After such a message as this, why had she not let him see her?  Why had she been angry with Keswick?  Was that pique?  And then a dark thought crossed his mind.  Had he been accepted to punish the other?  No, he could not believe that; no woman such as Roberta March would give herself away from such a motive.  Had Keswick been joking with him?  No, he could not believe that; no man could joke with such a face.

Even the fact that Mrs Keswick had not bid Miss March farewell, troubled the mind of Lawrence.  It was true that she might not yet know that the match, which she had so much encouraged, had been finally made, but something must be very wrong, or she would not have been absent at the moment of her guest’s departure.  And what did that beastly little negro mean by telling him that Keswick and Miss March were to be married at Christmas, and that the two were kissing