Maude had pushed up her veil, and sat with the little golden circlet in her hand, looking down at it, while the dim watery London sunlight poured through the window, and tagged all her wandering curls with a coppery gleam. It was a face beautiful in itself, but more beautiful for its expression—sensitive, refined, womanly, full of innocent archness and girlish mischief, but with a depth of expression in the eyes, and a tender delicacy about the mouth, which spoke of a great spirit with all its capacities for suffering and devotion within. The gross admirer of merely physical charms might have passed her over unnoticed. So might the man who is attracted only by outward and obvious signs of character. But to the man who could see, to the man whose own soul had enough of spirituality to respond to hers, and whose eye could appreciate the subtlety of a beauty which is of the mind as well as of the body, there was not in all wide London upon that midsummer day a sweeter girl than Maude Selby, as she sat in her grey merino dress with the London sun tagging her brown curls with that coppery glimmer. She handed back the ring, and a graver expression passed over her mobile face. ‘I feel as you said in your letter, Frank. There _is_ something tragic in it. It will be with me for ever. All the future will arrange itself round that little ring.’ ‘Are you afraid of it?’ ‘Afraid!’ her grey glove rested for an instant upon the back of his hand. ‘I _couldn’t_ be afraid of anything if you were with me. It is really extraordinary, for by nature I am so easily frightened. But if I were with you in a railway accident or anywhere, it would be just the same. You see I become for the time part of you, as it were, and you are brave enough for two.’ ‘I don’t profess to be so brave as all that,’ said Frank. ‘I expect I have as many nerves as my neighbours.’ Maude’s grey toque nodded up and down. ‘I know all about that,’ said she. ‘You have such a false idea of me. It makes me happy at the time and miserable afterwards, for I feel such a rank impostor. You imagine me to be a hero, and a genius, and all sorts of things, while I _know_ that I am about as ordinary a young fellow as walks the streets of London, and no more worthy of you than—well, than any one else is.’ She laughed with shining eyes. ‘I like to hear you talk like that,’ said she. ‘That is just what is so beautiful about you.’ It is hopeless to prove that you are not a hero when your disclaimers are themselves taken as a proof of heroism. Frank shrugged his shoulders. ‘I only hope you’ll find me out gradually and not suddenly,’ said he. ‘Now, Maude, we have all day and all London before us. What shall we do? I want you to choose.’ ‘I am quite happy whatever we do. I am content to sit here with you until evening.’ Her idea of a happy holiday set them both laughing. ‘Come along,’ said he, ‘we shall discuss it as we go.’