It crept into my heart and filled me with thankfulness that I had known this land and its people and for all the blessings that had fallen to me in the coming of Zura Wingate.  Gratitude for my full understanding of her was deep.  If only the shadows could be cleared away from the boy I loved, life would be complete.

Exalted by the beauty of the evening, and by my spiritual communings, I entered my house and faced the door of the study.  It was ajar.  Silhouetted against the golden light, which had so filled me with joy and peace, stood two figures.  And the man held the hands of the girl against his breast, and looked down into her glad eyes as a soul in the balance must look into Paradise.

It was Page Hanaford and Zura Wingate!

As quietly as possible I went around another way and dropped into the first handy chair.  The truth was as bare as a model.  The force of it came to me like a blow between the eyes.  Long ago, because of chilblains, I had adopted felt shoes.  In that second of time I stood at the door the noiseless footgear cured me of all the egotism I ever possessed.

Now I knew by what magic the transformation had been wrought in Zura.  And the castle of dreams, built on my supposed understanding of youth and the way it grew, was swept away by a single breath from the young god of love.  What a silly old jay bird I had been!  Was that what Jane Gray had been smiling to herself about?  I felt like shaking her for seeing it before I did.

* * * * *

At dinner Jane was the only one of the three of us without an impediment in her silence.  I was glad when the meal was over and we went to the study.

Zura buried herself in a deep windowseat, to watch the lights on the water, she said.  When there was not another glimmer to be seen, from the shadows came a voice with a soft little tremble in it, or possibly I had grown suddenly sensitive to trembles:  “Ursula, Mr. Hanaford was here this afternoon.”

Now, thought I, it’s coming.  Steadying myself I asked:  “Was he?  What did he have to say?”

“Oh-h!”—­indifferently—­“nothing much.  He brought back an armful of books.”

An armful of books—­aye, and his heart full of love!  How dared he speak of it with his life wrapped in the dark shadows of some secret?

Talk to me of progress!  That day I could have raced neck-and-neck with a shooting star!

XV

PINKEY CHALMERS CALLS AGAIN

Never having been within hailing distance before of the processes of love and proceedings of courtship there were no signposts in my experience to guide me as to what should be my next step, if it were mine to take.  I had been too busy a woman to indulge in many novels, but in the few I had read the hero lost no time in saying, “Will you?” and at once somebody began to practise the wedding march.  I suppose the fashion in lovemaking changes as much as the styles; nothing I ever thought or dreamed on the subject seemed to fit the case in hand.