For nearly a month we lived in perfect happiness, frequently visiting the Shuttleworths for the day, and going about a good deal in town. She urged me to go to Carrington to shoot, but, knowing that she did not like the old place, I made excuses and remained in London. "Father is in Roumania," she remarked to me one morning when she had been reading her letters at the breakfast-table. "He sends his remembrances to you from Bucharest. You have never been there, I suppose? I'm extremely fond of the place. There is lots of life, and the Roumanians are always so very hospitable." "No," I said, "I've never been to Bucharest, unfortunately, though I've been in Constanza, which is also in Roumania. Remember me to your father when you write, won't you?" "Certainly. He wonders whether you and I would care to go out there for a month or two?" "In winter?" "Winter is the most pleasant time. It is the season in Bucharest." "As you please, dearest," I replied. "I am entirely in your hands, as you know," I laughed. "That's awfully sweet of you, Owen," she declared. "You are always indulging me--just like the spoilt child I am." "Because I love you," I replied softly, placing my hand upon hers and looking into her wonderful eyes. She smiled contentedly, and I saw in those eyes the genuine love-look: the expression which a woman can never feign. Thus the autumn days went past, happy days of peace and joy. Sylvia delighted in the theatre, and we went very often, while on days when it was dry and the sun shone, I took her motoring to Brighton, to Guildford, to Tunbridge Wells, or other places on the well-known roads out of London. The clouds which had first marred our happiness had now happily been dispelled, and the sun of life and love shone upon us perpetually. Sometimes I wondered whether that ideal happiness was not too complete to last. In the years I had lived I had become a pessimist. I feared a too-complete ideal. The realization of our hopes is always followed by a poignant despair. In this world there is no cup of sweetness without dregs of bitterness. The man who troubles after the to-morrow creates trouble for himself, while he who is regardless of the future is like an ostrich burying its head in the sand at sign of disaster. Still, each of us who marry fondly believe ourselves to be the one exception to the rule. And perhaps it is only human that it should be so. I, like you my reader, believed that my troubles were over, and that all the lowering clouds had drifted away. They were, however, only low over the horizon, and were soon to reappear. Ah! how differently would I have acted had I but known what the future--the future of which I was now so careless--held in store for me!