It was not till a long time after that Kirsteen was free. Her eager expectation had fallen into an aching sense of suspense, a dull pang that affected both mind and body. Instead of the rapid flight to her room full of anticipation in which she had been arrested in entering the house, she went soberly, prepared for any disenchantment. The room was shared with her younger sister Jeanie, and it seemed quite probable that even a moment’s solitude might be denied her. When she found it empty, however, and had closed the door upon herself and her secret, it was with trembling hands that she opened the little parcel. It might be the handkerchief sent back to her, it might be some other plain intimation that he had changed his mind. But when the covering was undone, Kirsteen’s heart leaped up again to that sudden passion of joy and content which she had first known yesterday. The parcel contained the little Testament which Ronald had carried to church many a Sunday, a small book bound in blue morocco, a little bent and worn with use. On the flyleaf were his initials R. D., the letters of the handkerchief, and underneath C. D. freshly written. He had made rather clumsily, poor fellow, with a pencil, a sort of Runic knot of twisted lines to link the two names together. That was all. Nowadays the young lover would at least have added a letter; seventy years ago he had not thought of it. Kirsteen’s heart gave a bound in her breast, and out of weariness and contradiction and all the depressing influences of the morning, swam suddenly into another world: a delicious atmosphere of perfect visionary bliss. Never were public betrothals more certain, seldom so sweet. With a timid movement, blushing at herself, she touched with her lips the letters on the title-page. PART II. CHAPTER V.