"Thank you," Stafford said. He had taken Lois' hand without hesitation and the painful uneasiness which had at first marked his manner had given place to a certain grave, decided dignity. "Thank you," he repeated. "I hope we shall be happy. In the meantime, I must ask you to keep our engagement private. My future wife wishes it for the present--only you were to be told. So much I owed to you." "Yes, you owed us so much," the Colonel said, and there was a faint, irrepressible irony in his tone. Stafford still held Lois' hand. He seemed to have forgotten that he held it, and when she gently drew it away he started and a wave of dark color mounted to his forehead. "I must go now," she said. "I shall be late for the tournament, and I am to play with Captain Webb in the doubles. It would not be fair for me to spoil everything. I--I am very glad and grateful that you told us." Mrs. Carmichael gripped the arms of her chair. She saw more than her husband saw, and there was something in that absolute self-possession which frightened her. "Please go with Lois, Mr. Travers," she said sharply, recklessly. "I do not want her to go that long way alone. I should worry the whole evening." "May I, Miss Caruthers?" Travers had turned at last and was looking at her. "You promised me that I might act as substitute. Do you remember?" His tone was low, significant, full of a profound feeling which he knew she would hear and understand. She took his extended arm and he felt that she clung to him for support. "Thank you," she said under her breath. She went with him to the head of the verandah Steps, blindly obeying his strong guidance. Then she saw the Colonel's face and suddenly she laughed lightly, cheerfully, as though nothing in the world had happened, and her eyes flashed with an unconquerable courage. "You are not to bother," she called back to him. "I shall play up and win. I shall come back with all the prizes." He nodded. He understood and recognized the fighting spirit, and his admiration kindled and mingled with a biting, cruel grief. He watched her as she walked proudly erect at Travers' side, and his heart ached. He understood what his wife had understood in the first moment and what an hour before would have seemed impossible to them both; he understood that they were helpless, that they could neither protect nor comfort the brave young life which had been confided to their care. Their love, great as it was, lay useless, and his last pride, his last consolation was gone. He threw it to the wrecked lumber on his life's road. He did not hear Stafford's farewell nor his wife's icy response. He stood there with his hand clenched on the balustrade, motionless and wordless, until the evening shadows had crept over the silent garden. In that hour he knew himself to be an old and broken man.