"What a pity. Now you will be married with a black, dreadful looking bruise on your hand. That will not get well in ten days." "Sometimes I think it will never get well at all, Mattie," said Lady Doris, "it has been done some weeks already; I forget how long." Mattie kissed the dark skin, and Lady Doris shuddered as she remembered whose lips had rested on that hand before. "When is Earle coming?" she asked, and Lady Doris answered: "On the eighth, he cannot leave London before, you have no idea what a famous man he is becoming Mattie." She was glad to hear it; yet the old familiar prayer rose to her lips. Without knowing why, she said to herself: "Heaven save Earle!" CHAPTER LXXVI. "I SHALL WAKE UP AND FIND IT A DREAM." The eighth of August! When had any day so beautiful shone before? It was as though the birds had woke earlier to sing. How the sun was shining and the flowers blooming! Lady Doris opened her eyes to the fairest and loveliest day that had ever dawned. "Earle is coming to-day!" was her first thought. "Earle is coming!" sung the birds. "Earle is coming!" whispered the wind, as it stirred the sweet green leaves. She had rested well; for it seemed to her now that her troubles were nearly ended. In two more days she would be his wife; then, who could touch her, what evil could come to her? Earle was to be at Linleigh by noon. The hours would roll so swiftly, so sweetly by until then. Only two days! She sung to herself sweet little snatches of love songs. While she was dressing she looked at herself in wonder; could it be the same Doris who once thought nothing on earth of any value except money and grandeur? Could she have so mingled her love and life into another's as almost to have lost her own identity, and to think of nothing except Earle? "I never thought that I should be so much in love," she said, to herself. "How strange it seems!" She did not quite understand herself. It was not that she loved Earle so passionately; the capability of great love was not hers. It was not that; it was that Earle, the master-mind, had, by the force and nobility of his own character, completely influenced her, and had won a complete ascendency over her. She had not much power of loving; what she had was his. But Earle represented peace, happiness, and prosperity to her--Earle was her sure haven of rest, her shield against all evil, her refuge against her direst enemy and bitter foe, Lord Vivianne. So, welcome, bright, sunny day!--welcome golden sun and sweet flowers! The post brought her her daily love-letter; but it was brief. It said simply: "I cannot write much to my darling. I shall see her to-day, and, in two days more, she will be mine until death parts us." He thought of the words when he saw them again. Every face wore its brightest look at the breakfast-table that day. The earl and countess were happy in their beautiful daughter's happiness; Mattie, because she entered so easily into the joy of others.