“It is my right,” she whispered.  “Henceforth I shall wear it.  He loves me too well to quarrel with my decision.  Now am I really his wife.”

* * * * *

Did she see a change in him?  Did he come less frequently?  Did he stay less long?  Was there uneasiness in his eye—­coolness—­languor?  No, no.  It was her exacting heart which thus interpreted his look—­which counted the days—­forgot his many engagements—­saw impatience in the quickness with which he corrected her faults in manner or language instead of the old indulgence which met each error with a smile.  Love cannot always keep at fever-heat.  He, the cynosure of the whole foreign element, had the world at his feet here as in Lucerne.  It needed no jealous eye to see this; while she—­well, she had her attractions too, as had been often proved, and with God’s help she would yet be a fit mate for him.  What she now lacked, she would acquire.  She would watch these fine ladies who blushed with pleasure at his approach, and when her time of mourning was over she would astonish him with her graces and her appearance.  For she knew how to dress, yes, with the best of them, and hold her head and walk like the queen she would feel herself to be when once she bore his name.  Patience then, till she had stored her mind and learned the ways he was accustomed to in others.  She had money enough now that her uncle was dead, and she could do things....

Yes, but something had gone out of her face, and the ring hung loose on her finger.

* * * * *

And he?  Had her fears read him aright?  Had he grown indifferent or was he simply perplexed?  Let us watch him as he paces his hotel room one glorious afternoon, now stopping to re-read a letter he held in his hand, and now to gaze out with unseeing eyes to where the blue of the sea melts into the blue of the sky on the far horizon.

Love had been sweet; but man has other passions, and he is in the grip of the one mightiest in men of his stamp—­the all-engrossing, all-demanding one of personal ambition.

Without solicitation, without expectation even, a hand had been held out to him whose least grasp meant success in the one field most to his mind,—­a political career under auspices which had never been known to fail.  But there were conditions attached—­conditions which a year before would have filled him with joy, but which now stood like a barrier between him and his goal, unless....  But he was not yet ready to disavow his wife, trample upon her heart, nay on his own as well;—­that is, without a struggle.

For the third time he read the letter which you will see was from his mother.