“Go on,” said Hope, placidly; “I want to hear it from your own lips.”

Amy Waring was in doubt no longer.  She knew that Hope expected to hear that she was engaged.  And not with less placidity than Hope’s, she said: 

“Lawrence Newt wants us all to come and dine with him, because my Aunt Martha is found, and he wishes to bring Aunt Bennet and her together.”

That was all.  Hope looked as confusedly at the calm Amy as Amy, a moment since, had looked at her.  Then they both smiled, for they had, perhaps, some vague idea of what each had been thinking.

The same evening the Round Table met.  Arthur Merlin came early—­so did Hope Wayne.  They sat together talking rapidly, but Hope did not escape observing the unusual sadness of the artist—­a sadness of manner rather than of expression.  In a thousand ways there was a deference in his treatment of her which was unusual and touching.  She had been very sure that he had understood what she meant when she spoke to him with an air of badinage about his picture.  And certainly it was plain enough.  It was clear enough; only he would not see what was before his eyes, nor hear what was in his ears, and so had to grope a little further until Lawrence Newt suddenly struck a light and showed him where he was.

While they were yet talking Lawrence Newt came in.  He spoke to Amy Waring, and then went straight up to Hope Wayne and put out his hand with the old frank smile breaking over his face.  She rose and answered his smile, and laid her hand in his.  They looked in each other’s eyes; and Lawrence Newt saw in Hope Wayne’s the beauty of a girl that long ago, as a boy, he had loved; and in his own, Hope felt that tenderness which had made her mother’s happiness.

It was but a moment.  It was but a word.  For the first time he said,

“Hope.”

And for the first time she answered,

“Lawrence.”

Amy Waring heard them.  The two words seemed sharp:  they pierced her heart, and she felt faint.  The room swam, but she bit her lip till the blood came, and her stout heart preserved her from falling.

“It is what I knew:  they are engaged.”

But how was it that the manner of Lawrence Newt toward herself was never before more loyal and devoted?  How was it that the quiet hilarity of the morning was not gone, but stole into his conversation with her so pointedly that she could not help feeling that it magnetized her, and that, against her will, she was more than ever cheerful?  How was it that she knew it was herself who helped make that hilarity—­that it was not only her friend Hope who inspired it?

They are secrets not to be told.  But as they all sat around the table, and Arthur Merlin for the first time insisted upon reading from Byron, and in his rich melancholy voice recited

“Though the day of my destiny’s over,”

It was clear that the cloud had lifted—­that the spell of constraint was removed; and yet none of them precisely understood why.