“He said it was because I was going away that—­that he spoke,” she said.  “Oh, Mrs. Holt, I knew that you would be kind about it.”

“Of course I am kind about it, my dear,” said Mrs. Holt.  “As I told you, I have grown to have an affection for you.  I feel a little as though you belonged to me.  And after this—­this event, I expect to see a great deal of you.  Howard Spence’s mother was a very dear friend of mine.  I was one of the first who knew her when she came to New York, from Troy, a widow, to educate her son.  She was a very fine and a very courageous woman.”  Mrs. Holt paused a moment.  “She hoped that Howard would be a lawyer.”

“A lawyer!” Honora repeated.

“I lost sight of him for several years,” continued Mrs. Holt, “but before I invited him here I made some inquiries about him from friends of mine in the financial world.  I find that he is successful for so young a man, and well thought of.  I have no doubt he will make a good husband, my dear, although I could wish he were not on the Stock Exchange.  And I hope you will make him happy.”

Whereupon the good lady kissed Honora, and dismissed her to dress for dinner.

“I shall write to your aunt at once,” she said.

........................

Requited love, unsettled condition that it is supposed to bring, did not interfere with Howard Spence’s appetite at dinner.  His spirits, as usual, were of the best, and from time to time Honora was aware of his glance.  Then she lowered her eyes.  She sat as in a dream; and, try as she might, her thoughts would not range themselves.  She seemed to see him but dimly, to hear what he said faintly; and it conveyed nothing to her mind.

This man was to be her husband!  Over and over she repeated it to herself.  His name was Howard Spence, and he was on the highroad to riches and success, and she was to live in New York.  Ten days before he had not existed for her.  She could not bring herself to believe that he existed now.  Did she love him?  How could she love him, when she did not realize him?  One thing she knew, that she had loved him that morning.

The fetters of her past life were broken, and this she would not realize.  She had opened the door of the cage for what?  These were the fragments of thoughts that drifted through her mind like tattered clouds across an empty sky after a storm.  Peter Erwin appeared to her more than once, and he was strangely real.  But he belonged to the past.  Course succeeded course, and she talked subconsciously to Mr. Holt and Joshua—­such is the result of feminine training.

After dinner she stood on the porch.  The rain had ceased, a cool damp breeze shook the drops from the leaves, and the stars were shining.  Presently, at the sound of a step behind her, she started.  He was standing at her shoulder.

“Honora!” he said.

She did not move.

“Honora, I haven’t seen you—­alone—­since morning.  It seems like a thousand years.  Honora?”