"How long shall we be able to wander without people knowing anything about us?" she asked eagerly. He was pleased--reassured--to see how the idea of a lengthy, secret honeymoon revivified her. She must love him! How else should she wish to sail the oceans of the globe with him, alone, as her companion? "Dearest, that will be for you to say," he fondly returned, gazing rapturously at the exquisite profile, waxen and delicate against the drooping black feathers of her picture hat. If only the lines under those beautiful eyes were less sharply defined, and the droop in those soft, sweet lips less ominous of secret sorrow! But, as he himself termed it, at that juncture in their _tête-à-tête_ Joan seemed to "take a favourable turn." First, seemingly roused from her melancholy mood by talk of their approaching flight and consequent life on the high seas, she became steadily brighter as the afternoon progressed. Returning to the augmented crowd of Lady C----’s fashionable guests, they mingled with the rest, Lord Vansittart behaving with a decorous respect, and comporting himself admirably as a rejected suitor returned to the fray. Only when, by Sir Thomas’ special invitation, he made one of the party on the coach, and throughout the home-going sat as close into Joan’s pocket as he dared, did he permit himself to drop the carefully-assumed manner it had cost him such pains to maintain. But, later, he was rewarded. After dining with Joan and a few guests of Sir Thomas’, he spent a delightful half-hour with her on the balcony, among the flowers under the awning. No one could see them from below--opposite, the trees in the enclosure were dusky masses in the starlight. The summer night seemed charged with love-murmurs--the glittering heavens to twinkle joyously of the great emotion which brought forth the Universe. "Only a few days--and you will belong to me for ever!" he said, rapturously. Almost as alone in their sought-for seclusion as if they were already riding the waves of the southern seas in the ship that was to see their first matrimonial bliss, he held her in his arms, and tenderly, reverently--with almost the passionate devotion of an anchorite kissing cherished relics--kissed her pale cheeks, her sweet mouth, her beautiful, thoughtful brows. "Darling--I will make you forget all your troubles--your self-reproach--everything that can possibly detract from your happiness! I promise you I will! Do, do say that you believe that I am capable of doing it!" "If any one is, you are!" she murmured, clinging to him. "Somehow, to-night, I feel happier than usual--as if life had something in it, after all! And it is you who have made me cheer up--a few hours with you has given me a certain confidence--or rather, I should say, a hope--that perhaps the day may come when I shall be able to forget--everything--but my life with you!"