“Well, my darling,” she said in a tone of extreme reasonableness, “we shall decide nothing to-night. I know nothing against Mr. Wayne. He may be just the right person. We must see more of him. Do you know anything about his family?” Mathilde shook her head. “He lives alone with his mother. His father is dead. She’s very good and interested in drunkards.” “In _drunkards_?” Mrs. Farron just shut her eyes a second. “She has a mission that reforms them.” “Is that his profession, too?” “Oh, no. He’s in Wall Street--quite a good firm. O Mama, don’t sigh like that! We know we can’t be married at once. We are reasonable. You think not, because this has all happened so suddenly; but great things do happen suddenly. We love each other. That’s all I wanted to tell you.” “Love!” Adelaide looked at the little person before her, tried to recall the fading image of the young man, and then thought of the dominating figure in her own life. “My dear, you have no idea what love is.” She took no notice of the queer, steady look the girl gave her in return. She went down-stairs. She had been gone more than an hour, and she knew that Vincent would have been long since asleep. He had, and prided himself on having, a great capacity for sleep. She tiptoed past his door, stole into her own room, and then, glancing in the direction of his, was startled to see that a light was burning. She went in; he was reading, and once again, as his eyes turned toward her, she thought she saw the same tragic appeal that she had felt that afternoon in his kiss. Trembling, she threw herself down beside him, clasping him to her. “O Vincent! oh, my dear!” she whispered, and began to cry. He did not ask her why she was crying; she wished that he would; his silence admitted that he knew of some adequate reason. “I feel that there is something wrong,” she sobbed, “something terribly wrong.” “Nothing could go wrong between you and me, my darling,” he answered. His tone comforted, his touch was a comfort. Perhaps she was a coward, she said to herself, but she questioned him no further. CHAPTER IV Wayne was not so prompt as Mathilde in making the announcement of their engagement. He and his mother breakfasted together rather hastily, for she was going to court that morning to testify in favor of one of her backsliding inebriates, and Wayne had not found the moment to introduce his own affairs. That afternoon he came home earlier than usual; it was not five o’clock. He passed Dr. Parret’s flat on the first floor--Dr. Lily MacComb Parret. She was a great friend of his, and he felt a decided temptation to go in and tell her the news first; but reflecting that no one ought to hear it before his mother, he went on up-stairs. He lived on the fifth floor.