Just as they were about to step out from under the arch of the beech trees on to the high road, he again took her in his arms. "Laura?" he whispered. "May I tell my mother?" But as he felt her hesitating: "No!" he exclaimed. "Forget that I asked you that! We will say nothing yet. Secrecy is a delicious concomitant of love." She heard the added, whispered words, uttered as if to his own heart, "At least so I have ever found it." And they were words which a little troubled Laura. Surely she was the first woman he had ever loved? "Aunt Letty has a right to know," she murmured. "But no one else, Oliver, must know, till January is past." And then she hung her head, perchance a little ashamed of this harking back to the conventions of her everyday life. He was surprised to hear her say further and with an effort, "I would rather Lord St. Amant didn't know. We shall be staying at Knowlton Abbey together in December." "We shall," he said exultantly. "For that I thank God!" Then suddenly he released her from out of his strong encompassing arms, and stooping down very low he kissed the hem of her long black gown.... After they had parted Oliver Tropenell waited on and on in the dark garden till he heard Lord St. Amant's car drive away. Then he walked quickly across the lawn and back into his mother's drawing-room. "Mother?" he said briefly. "Laura and I are going to be married. But we do not wish any one to know this till--till February." Even now he could not wholly banish Godfrey Pavely's intrusive presence from his Laura-filled heart. CHAPTER XXIII To any imaginative mind there is surely something awe-inspiring in the thought of the constant secret interlocking of lives which seem as unlikely ever to meet, in a decisive sense, as are two parallel lines. How amazed, how bewildered, Laura Pavely would have been could she have visioned even a hundredth part of the feeling concerning herself which filled her nearest neighbour, Katty Winslow's, heart! Even in the old days Katty had disliked Laura, and had regarded her with a mixture of contempt and envy. And now that Oliver Tropenell had come back--now that Katty suspected him of being Laura's potential, if not actual, lover--she grew to hate the woman who had always been kind to her with an intense, calculating hate. It seemed as if she hardly ever looked out of one of her windows without seeing Oliver on his way to The Chase, or Laura on her way to Freshley--and this although the secret lovers behaved with great discretion, for Oliver was less, rather than more, with Laura than he used to be in the old days when Godfrey was alive. Also, wherever Laura happened to be, her child--cheerful, eager little Alice--was sure to be close by.