"Are you so deaf? All in an instant have you become so dull? Come, I will do the wooing, since you are afraid to woo me." That ever I should have been told by a woman that I was afraid to woo her! "If you but love me half as I love you, you will fill the world with the fame of the great deeds which you will do for love of me, and leave behind a name which men never shall let die." "Dora! Dora! My Dora!" "Well, if I am your's----" "If? Is it only if?" "Will you be mine?" "Body, soul, and spirit. I do believe you have bewitched me. I am going mad for the love of you!" "I am content." "Is this a dream of ecstasy from which there will soon be waking?" "I would that you might wake to something soon." "What's that?" "To the fact that I am here." I woke to it. It was worth while to have lived if only to have woke to what I woke then. For I woke to find that her face was close to mine, that I might take her in my arms, that I was free to smother her with kisses. Loving is such sweet pain. I learned it then! And hardly had I loosed her, than some one came upon us. It was Sir Haselton Jardine. I saw his well-regulated eyelids suffered to open to enable him to shoot one of his swift glances. I saw his lips wrinkled by his imitation of a smile. And he said-- "I hope I do not interrupt you. I am but now arrived from town." Dora, all rosy red, ran into his arms. "Father!" she cried. "My dear!" Then to me, "How are you, Townsend? I said I thought it possible that you might have something to say to me before you went away." "I trust, sir, that I may have." I believe that I, myself, was blushing like any boy. While we were standing there--forming, no doubt, a sufficiently awkward group--Tommy Verulam came running in. He seemed to have recovered from the effects of his little episode with Archie. He was quite excited. "I say, I've just been looking at the London papers. It seems that they've got the chap who murdered the woman at Three Bridges." I turned to him. "Indeed! Who may he be?" "His name is Tennant--Thomas Tennant. I hope they'll hang the brute, upon my soul I do." Sir Haselton struck in-- "I am briefed by the Treasury to prosecute. If the man's guilty, it will be a positive pleasure to have a hand in sending him to the gallows." As I was endeavouring to grasp the drift of what it was that they were saying, I saw that Archie Beaupré was staring at us through the drawing-room window. BOOK III.--THE WOMAN. (_The Story as told by Mrs. Carruth_.) CHAPTER XXI. THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT. To have fallen out of an express train going at full speed! I have had some strange experiences, for a mere woman. But this, I think, beats all. And to owe it to Thomas Tennant! I will be even with him yet.