She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, but their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with Rex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anything should happen--it would kill her now--yet nothing could go wrong on the eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick would not dare go to Rex with such a story--he would write it--and all those things took time. With care and caution and constant watching she would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever until after the ceremony; then she could breathe freely, for the battle so bravely fought would be won. "If to-morrow is as bright as to-day, Pluma will have a glorious wedding-day," said Bessie Glenn, smiling up into the face of a handsome young fellow who was fastening a rosebud she had just given him in the lapel of his coat with one hand, and with the other tightly clasping the white fingers that had held the rose. He did not notice that Pluma stood in the curtained recesses of an adjoining window as he answered, carelessly enough: "Of course, I hope it will be a fine, sunshiny day, but the indications of the weather don't look exactly that way, if I am any judge." "Why, you don't think it is going to rain, do you? Why, it will spoil the rose-bower she is to be married in and all the beautiful decoration. Oh, please don't predict anything so awfully horrible; you make me feel nervous; besides, you know what everybody says about weddings on which the rain falls." "Would you be afraid to experiment on the idea?" asked the impulsive young fellow, who always acted on the spur of the moment. "If to-morrow were a rainy day, and I should say to you, 'Bess, will you marry me to-day or never?' what would your answer be?" "I should say, just now, I do not like 'ifs and ands.' Supposing a case, and standing face to face with it, are two different things. I like people who say what they mean, and mean what they say." Pluma saw the dazzling light flame into the bashful young lover's eyes as he bent his head lower over the blushing girl who had shown him the right way to capture a hesitating heart. "_That_ is love," sighed Pluma. "Ah, if Rex would only look at me like that I would think this earth a heaven." She looked up at the bright, dazzling clouds overhead; then she remembered the words she had heard--"It looked like rain on the morrow." Could those white, fleecy clouds darken on the morrow that was to give her the only treasure she had ever coveted in her life? She was not superstitious. Even if it did rain, surely a few rain-drops could not make or mar the happiness of a lifetime. She would not believe it. "Courage until to-morrow," she said, "and my triumph will be complete. I will have won Rex." The little ormolu clock on the mantel chimed the hour of five. "Heavens!" she cried to herself, "Rex has been gone over two hours. I feel my heart must be bursting."