“I daresay you will,” she replied demurely, with a spice of her old spirit. “Have you ever heard, ‘He that will not when he may,’ etc.? And you took quite enough just now to last you for a long time,” she added, with a deep blush. “You are not going to put me on allowance, are you? I tell you plainly I won’t stand it. After offering me a kiss you never can again pretend you are shy. Now, candidly, _can_ you? I’m afraid you are a little impostor,” quietly insinuating his arm round her waist. “I see you are as great a tease as ever, at any rate, Reginald,” she exclaimed tragically. “If you ever dare to allude to my foolish, idiotical offer, I won’t say what I shall do to you. I am not an impostor, and you know very well I _am_ shy; you often said it--it----” “Well, go on, I would not commence a sentence I was afraid to finish if I were you!” “Well, that it was my only fault--there!” “And so it was; and as you are cured now of course you are perfect.” A silence. At length she said: “Were you really going away to-morrow, Regy?” “Yes, indeed I was. I have been lingering on here from day to day, hoping for one little word, just one, and it did not come. I would have gone back into the world a hard, embittered, cynical man. You smile, you think I am that already?” “Tell me, Regy, will you be the very same Regy I knew of old, and will the rude, cold, stern guardian I have met lately, and--I tell you in confidence that I am a little afraid of--will he go?” “He will,” replied her husband, with quiet decision. “He will take his departure along with the haughty young lady with whom he gets on so well. Are you sorry? Are you sorry to lose your guardian and find your husband?” “Sorry!” she repeated, taking the flower out of his button-hole with the calmest air of rightful appropriation. “Do I _look_ sorry? By-the-way, for the third time of asking, you may as well give me my wedding-ring”--fastening the flower in the front of her dress, and holding out a small white palm. “How glad I shall be to see it again,” she exclaimed, as she eagerly watched him disengaging it from his chain. “Here it is,” handing it to her; “it is a travelled ring.” “Let me see”--turning it to the moonlight and scrutinising it closely--“if it is my own. Yes, there is the ‘R. A.’ entwined. Now please to put it on.” “Alice,” he said, taking her little ring-less hand in his and slipping it on her finger, “remember, you are not to remove it again.” “I never will, you may be very sure, as long as I live, and when I die it shall be buried with me. See, it is quite too big for me now,” holding up her hand. “It is indeed,” he reluctantly owned to himself, as he looked at the fragile, almost transparent fingers held up for his inspection. An agonising thought flitted through his brain and turned his heart, as it were, to ice. “Had he gained her but to lose her after all?” “Why do you shiver?” cried Alice gaily. “Why do you look so odd--you are not ill, are you?”