“Is Sunday the best day?” he questioned, thoughtfully.

“Oh, much the best!” Cherry said, her whole face glowing suddenly.  “You see, it’s already arranged that I come in to the Olivers’ Saturday night, and help them get ready for their tea on Sunday.  Alix is to stay in the valley, and play the organ Sunday morning, and come in with Martin at ten.”

“I suppose I’ll have to come when they do!” he mused.

“But isn’t there that breakfast at the club on Sunday?” Cherry asked.

“Porter’s breakfast—­yes.  But I’m not going to that,” Peter said, stupidly.

“Couldn’t you say that you were?” she supplied, simply.

“Yes, by George!” he agreed, brightening.  “That fixes me!  But now how about you?”

“Why, I am at the Olivers’!” she reminded him.  “All I have to do is walk out of the house at ten!”

Their eyes met in a wild rush of triumph and hope.

“This time we shall do it!” Peter said.  “Your suitcase I’ll have.  You have money?”

“Oh, plenty!”

“Martin thinks you go with him Monday, eh?”

“I hardly know what he thinks!” she answered, with a fluttered air.  “I’ve hardly known what I was doing or saying!  He was to go to-morrow, you know.  But I told him that I wanted to get the whole house in perfect order, in case Alix should ever find a tenant.  We’ve worked like beavers there!”

“I know you have!” He smiled down at her, Peter’s kind and radiant smile.  “After day after day after to-morrow,” he said, “I shall see to it that you never work too hard again!”

“Oh, Peter—­you’ll never be sorry?” she whispered.

“Sorry!  My dearest child, when you give your beauty and your youth to a man almost twice your age, who has loved you all your life—­ do you think there is much chance of it?”

“Why shouldn’t it be one of the happy—­marriages?” said Cherry after a silence.

“It will,” he answered, confidently.  “My dearest girl, I know something of life and its disappointments and disillusionments!  And I tell you that I know that every hour you and I have together is going to be more wonderful than the hour before!  I tell you that as the weeks become months, and the months become years, and the beauty and miracle of it go on and on, we will think that what we feel for each other now is only the shadow—­the dream!”

“But the beginning will be wonderful enough!” Cherry mused.  “You and I, breakfasting together, walking together, talking together, always just we two!  But, Peter,” she said, suddenly, “one of us might die!”

“Ah, that,” he conceded, soberly, “that!  It’s all I’m afraid of, now!”

“I am terribly afraid of it!” said Cherry, beginning to tremble.  “If you should die now, before Sunday!  I never thought of it before—­”

“You mustn’t think of it now, and I won’t!” he said, quickly.  “Why, we have only two days to wait—!”