Those joys that we hold by a frail, slight tenure we always prize the most. This love that she was fated one day to lose had become a part of Laurel Vane's life. She said to herself that, when she lost it she would die. It was a mad love that she gave her noble, princely looking lover. She would have made any sacrifice for him except to tell him that she had deceived him. She would have died for him if need be, but death would have been easier than confessing her strange sin to him. St. Leon chafed sorely at the idea of waiting so long to claim his bonny bride. They had talked of a bridal tour to Europe, and Laurel had betrayed the most eager delight at the idea. The tour of Europe had not the attraction of novelty to him. He had made it several times, but he longed to gratify the girl's wish; he was so sure that he would make her happy he could not bear to wait. And yet he was not selfish enough to wish to hasten Mrs. Gordon's return at the hazard of her health. His mother agreed with him that it was unfortunate his having to wait. She was very anxious to see him married to Beatrix Gordon, and she thought the autumn a pleasant time for crossing the ocean. If they could only be married in October, how pleasant it would be, but then the _trousseau_--it would take an endless time for that. St. Leon displayed all a man's impatience under the circumstances. "A fig for the _trousseau_! What could be prettier than Beatrix's white dresses that she wore every day? But if she had to have no end of new things, why couldn't they get them when they went to Paris? Worth was the only man who could make them, anyhow. Given a traveling-dress to cross the 'herring pond' in, and she might have a hundred new dresses if she liked, once they landed in France. Must a man wait months and months for his happiness on account of some paltry dresses?" Mrs. Le Roy, in her anxiety for the marriage, quite agreed with him in his tersely expressed views. If Mrs. Gordon came home she would order her daughter's dresses from Paris. How much easier for Beatrix to get them herself while abroad! She wrote to Mrs. Gordon and suggested the idea. Moreover, she hinted broadly her fears that Beatrix, if let alone so long, might change her mind--might return to the old love--no one could say when Cyril Wentworth would return to America, nor what effect his return might have on his sweetheart. Mrs. Le Roy thought the wisest plan, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, would be for the Gordons to continue their Southern tour, and let St. Leon marry Beatrix quietly, without any fuss or ceremony, and take her abroad.