She bent her face suddenly, pressing her cheek to the hand she held.  “I am ready for you when ever you will,” she murmured.

“I know it,” he said.  “And God bless you for telling me so!”

He was full of kindness to her that day, and she thought him cheerier than he had been all the winter.  When she bade him good-bye that afternoon he seemed in excellent spirits.  Yet after she was gone he lay for a long while staring at the specks of dust that danced in a shaft of sunlight, with the air of a man seeking the solution of a problem that baffled him.  And once very suddenly he sighed.

Anne went through the ordeal of publicity with less embarrassment than she had anticipated.  Mrs. Errol was with her, and she was surrounded by friends.  Even Major Shirley deigned to look upon her with a favourable eye.  Bertie was hunting, but Dot was present to view the final achievement of her favourite scheme.

She seized the first opportunity to slip her arm through Anne’s.  “Do—­do come home with me to tea,” she whispered very urgently.  “I want to show you some things I have been making.  And make the dear mater come too, if someone else doesn’t snap her up first.”

But the dear mater was already snapped up, and Anne had some difficulty in avoiding a like fate.

Eventually, however, she succeeded in making her escape, and she and Dot drove back to the Dower House, congratulating themselves.

“I am lucky to get you all to myself,” Dot said.  “And do you know, dear Lady Carfax, you are looking simply lovely to-day?”

Anne smiled a little.  She had discarded her widow’s veil for the first time, and she felt like a woman emerging from a long imprisonment.  People would call it premature, she knew.  Doubtless they were already discussing her not too charitably.  But after all, why should she consider them?  The winter was past and over, and the gold of the coming spring was already dawning.  Why should she mourn?  Were not all regrets put away for ever?

“I wish you would call me Anne, Dot,” she said.

“To be sure I will,” said Dot, with shining eyes.  “I never liked the name before I knew you.  And now I love it.”

There was something wonderfully genuine and childlike about Dot, a youthfulness that would probably cling to her all her life.  Anne drew her on to speak of herself and her coming happiness, which she did with that cheery simplicity of hers that had first drawn Bertie to her.

“He makes a tremendous fuss,” she said, displaying Bertie’s favourite dimple at the thought.  “I don’t, you know.  I somehow feel it’s going to be all right.  But it’s rather nice being petted for months together.  I haven’t had a tantrum for ages.  I’m afraid I’m getting spoilt.”

At which piece of logic Anne could not repress a smile.

“He won’t be home to tea,” said Dot, when they finally turned in at the Dower House.  “He stables his hunters at Baronmead, and he is sure to go in and see Luke.  So we shall have it all to ourselves.  I’m so glad, for I have been wanting your advice for days.  I wonder if anyone has been.  Hullo!  Bertie’s back after all!”