No other word was spoken. Henry Rayne had left the room, and Honor stood there alone--stood with folded hands and dreamy eyes--thinking. What a strange request this had been! How was she going to fulfil her promise without betraying the real impulse that had spurred her to make it? How was she going to work her way into his confidence, and yet guard her own? Oh, if this were a task for Mr. Rayne's sake only, how easily she would convert it into a pleasure--but she had promised, that cancelled all her misgivings. She would do it now, if it were in woman's power, she would make it her duty, and with a resolute will and an anxious heart, surely the accomplishment would not prove too hard--"Only--if I had not seen my want supplied in him--if I had not recognized in him the hero of my life's dream. Oh, Guy! What a joy it will be to me if I can teach you to come to me, turning your back upon gaiety, and pleasure, and temptation, to sit by my side, when the voice of a more powerful tempter is stifling mine. What joy for me then!--but no, I am wrong!--it is not my gratification I have been sent to seek; this is a mere duty. If I had loathed you at this moment, my duty is still the same. Just now, it is not _your_ sake nor _mine_--it is Henry Rayne's." The door opened slowly and the croaky voice of the old male servant broke upon her reverie. "Beg pardon Miss, but dinner is served." Heroically she stowed away her emotions, the old pleasant smile stole back into its home, and with a beaming face and cheerful step she passed into the dining-room. CHAPTER VI. "Oh the snow, the beautiful snow Filling the sky and the earth below.' "It will be a stormy night I think," Honor says, shrugging her pretty shoulders behind the window-blind she is just lowering, "I wish I had the stout brawny arms of a man to-night...." "Around your waist?" says a voice from behind her, and, suiting the action to the word, some one encircles her slender waist with "stout brawny arms." "Guy! I have told you in plain English that I will not allow you to take such freedom with me. _This_ time, I say, '_Je vous difends sirieusementde mettre vos bras...._'" "Oh! that's enough, by Jove, you'd drive a fellow crazy if he'd listen to you long enough, with your recitals on maidenly propriety. Now, there's Miss Bella Dash--many a season's belle--just chuckles with delight when I get this broad cloth sleeve fairly around her blue satin basque"