‘That is truly good of you,’ said he, softly. ‘Your shawl is not warm enough,’ he added, stopping, as she shivered a little, and he altered it and folded it more closely about her. As they stood there, his eyes looked into hers, and by the moonlight he saw that hers were full of fear, and that her face was white, and her expression one of pain. ‘I ought not to have brought you out,’ he said, regretfully. ‘No; I think I should like to go in again, please,’ said Nita. ‘You shall, now that I know how good you are,’ he answered, lifting up the hand that lay upon his arm, and stooping his beautiful head towards it, he touched the tips of her fingers with his lips. ‘What a long time it seems since we walked here this morning,’ he added, ‘does it not?’ ‘A very long time,’ responded Nita, in a voice of exceeding weariness. They entered the drawing-room again, and Wellfield, speaking to Mr. Bolton, said: ‘I am sure Miss Bolton ought not to sit up any longer. She has been more shaken than she will own by her accident this afternoon, and——’ ‘Nita, say good-night, and go to bed,’ said her father, presenting her simultaneously with a candle and a kiss. ‘Here, shake hands with her, Mr. Wellfield. Good-night, child. Off with you.’ * * * * * Nita, locked in her room, began her preparations for writing. She had inscribed the words: ‘How much I have to record! What a day this has been! What a century of events and emotions have been compressed into a brief and fleeting fourteen or fifteen hours. And how little I thought when——’ She broke off abruptly, cast her pen down, and started from her chair, pacing about the room; her hands before her face, and short, tearless sobs now and then breaking from her lips. ‘Oh! what shall I do?’ she whispered. ‘What will become of me? I believe I had better have died before I had seen him. But if he loved me—oh! if God would let him love me—what am I saying?... I am afraid. I wish some one were here. I dare not be alone.’ She opened the door softly. On the mat before it lay Speedwell; he raised his head, blinked at her, and moved his great tail up and down slowly. ‘Speedwell, come in!’ she whispered, beckoning to him. The mastiff obeyed. Nita locked him into the room with her, and as he sat looking up at her, inquiring why she was troubled, she cast her arms about his faithful neck, and sobbed as if her heart would break. When the paroxysm was over, and she looked at him, tears were coursing down Speedwell’s nose too. ‘You will never tell anyone, will you, Speedwell?’ she muttered. ‘You are wiser and stronger than your mistress, old dog and old friend.’ Speedwell watched beside the bed on which his mistress passed a restless night; her brain full of the rapidly changing images of alternating hope and anguish, rapture and despair and love, with which her day had been filled.