He walked to the door, he turned the handle, he gave one last, despairing look—­and what did he see?  A little, white hand extended imploringly, and a pathetic little voice, tremulously speaking: 

“Hugh, don’t go!”

He stopped, turning ghastly white.

“Mollie!  For God’s sake—­”

“Don’t—­don’t go, Mr. Ingelow!  Don’t go, for I forgive you—­I love you!”

Hugh Ingelow gave one amazed cry—­it was more like a shout—­and in the next ecstatic moment Miss Dane was in his arms, held there as if he never would let her go.

“Please don’t!” Mollie said, pettishly.  “What do you suppose a person’s ribs are made of, to stand such bear’s hugs as that?  Besides, I didn’t tell you to.  I only asked you not to mind the divorce—­to-day!”

“Mollie, Mollie! for Heaven’s sake, don’t trifle with me!  I am nearly beside myself—­what with remorse, despair, and now hope.  Tell me—­can you ever forgive me?  But I am mad to ask it, to hope for it.  I know what you said to Doctor Oleander.”

“Do you?” said Mollie; “but then you’re not Doctor Oleander.”

“Mollie!”

“But still,” said Mollie, solemnly, and disengaging herself, “when I have time to think about it, I am sure I shall hate you like poison.  I do now, but I hate divorces more.  Oh, Mr. Ingelow! how could you behave so disgracefully?”

And then all at once and without the slightest premonitory warning, the young lady broke out crying hysterically, and to do it the better laid her face on Mr. Ingelow’s shoulder.  And, that bold buccaneer of modern society gathered the little girl close to his heart, like the presumptuous scoundrel he was, and let her cry her fill; and the face he bent over her was glorified and ecstatic.

“Stop crying, Mollie,” he said at last, putting back the yellow curls, and peeping at the flushed, wet, pretty face.  “Stop crying, my dear little wife, and look up and say, ‘Hugh, I forgive you.’”

“Never!” said Mollie.  “You cruel, tyrannical wretch, I hate you!”

And saying it, Mollie put her arms round his neck, and laughed and cried wildly in the same breath.

“The hysterics will do you good, my dear,” said Mr. Ingelow; “only don’t keep them up too long, and redden your precious blue eyes, and swell your dear little nose.  Mollie, is it possible you love me a little, after all?”

Mollie lifted her face again, and looked at him with solemn, shining eyes.

“Oh, Hugh! am I really and truly—­your very wife?”

“My very own—­my darling Mollie—­my precious little bride, as fast as Church and State and Mr. Rashleigh can make you.”

“Oh, Hugh, it was a shame!”

“I know it, Mollie—­a dreadful shame!  But you’ll be a Christian, won’t you, and try to forgive me?”

“I’ll try, but I’m afraid it is impossible.  And all the time I thought it was Doctor Oleander.  Oh, Hugh, you’ve no idea how miserable I was.”