“Well, then, let’s start for home to-morrow;” and they made their arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther Hooper.  He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not being her heart’s choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all.

As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put his arm around her, saying, “I’ve been very happy, little wife, here with you.  Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw you?”

“I have had no cause to regret it,” she said quietly.

“But you are not glad,” he said, taking his arm away.

“As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything—­more glad than I am for most things.”

He looked at her with a sigh.  “My father—­and I am like him—­loved only once.”  Her words came constantly into his mind.  “I came too late,” he thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other earthly thing he had ever known.  He had left her side, and was standing looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to breakfast.  After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head against his arm.  He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice of the action.  She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, “Dear Ross, I am glad:  I am happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be.  I would not undo the deed we have done so long as you are content.  I like being with you dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your wife—­your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good.”

“My Preciosa”—­and he drew her into his arms—­“so long as we both shall live, you mean.  I want no life without you now.”  Then turning her, face up, he scanned it hastily:  “You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale!  Are you ill, my Percy?”

“No, no,” she said quickly.  “I think I need my breakfast:  I have been up a couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night.”

“My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of ours, perhaps you’ll get some rest.  But you talk in this strange way of dying:  just now you did, and once before in your letter.  What makes you do it?  Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?”

“Nothing—­only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death as a boon which God would send me soon.”