"I fancied there might be another cause for it, Lucy, and I have ventured to say so to Colonel Cleeve. He agrees with me." "You--you were not afraid to call here!" she exclaimed, as if the fact were a subject of wonder. "What I had to say to Colonel Cleeve I wrote by letter. After that, he invited me to call." Karl sat down on the red sofa opposite the chair, and put Lucy by him, his arm entwining her waist. "I want you," he said, "to tell me exactly what it is that keeps you from getting strong, Lucy." "But I cannot tell you, for I don't know," she answered with a little sob. "I wish I could get well, Karl--for poor papa and mamma's sake." "Do you think I could do anything towards the restoration, Lucy?" he continued, drawing her closer to his side. "What could you do?" "Watch you, and tend you, and love you. And--and make you my wife." "Don't jest, Karl," she said, whispering and trembling. "You know it may not be." "But if Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve say that it may be?" The tone of his voice was redolent of anything but jesting: it was one of deep truthful emotion. Lucy looked questioningly up at him. "Oh Karl, don't play with me! What do you mean?" He caught the sweet face, and held it to his. His own hands were trembling, his race was pale as hers. But she could not mistake his grave earnestness. "It means, my darling, that you are to be mine for ever. My wife. They are going to give you to me: your father brought me here that I might myself break it to you." A minute's doubting look; a slight shiver as if the joy were too great; and then with a sigh she let her head fall on his breast--its future resting-place. "And what's this that you were looking at, Lucy?" he asked after a while, turning the pretty bracelet round and round her wrist. "Mamma bought it me yesterday for my New Year's étrenne. I was thinking--before you came--that I might not live to wear it." "I was thinking yesterday, Lucy, as I walked along the Boulevards, that I would give a great deal to have some one to buy étrennes for. It is not too late, is it? Meanwhile----" Breaking off his sentence, he took a very rare ring from his finger, one of the most brilliant of opals encompassed by diamonds. She had never seen him wear it before. "Oh, how very beautiful!" she exclaimed, as it flashed in a gleam of reflected sunlight. "I do not give it you, Lucy," he said, putting it upon her finger. "I lend it you until I can find another fit to replace it. That may be in a day, or so. This ring was my father's: made a present of to him by an Eastern Sultan, to whom he was able to render an essential service. At my father's death it came to my brother: and--later--to me." Karl's voice dropped as he was concluding. Lucy Cleeve felt for him; she knew what _he_ must feel at the allusion. She glided her hand into his, unsought. "So until then this ring shall be the earnest of our betrothal, Lucy. You will take care of it: and of my love."