Fair did, indeed, look shocked and pale as she pushed the slip of paper hurriedly in among the others and spread her hands over them, as if to shut out the horror of what she had read. The color had faded entirely out of her face and lips, and her large eyes were dilated as if with terror. “I should not have given you those things to read. Forgive me,” said Bayard Lorraine, in a voice of deep and tender concern. He moved nearer to her, and laid one hand on her two clasped ones with a light pressure that sent the blood flying back into her cheeks. She drew a long, deep sigh, then seemed to rally from her deep dejection, and exclaimed, with a little shudder: “Ugh! It was horrible, was it not?” “Yes,” he answered, and the pressure of his hand tightened on hers as he saw that she did not resist it. It even seemed to him that with the sudden flush that came to her cheeks her eyes beamed on him with a gentle confidence, and the exquisitely molded form seemed to lean almost unconsciously nearer his shoulder. The lover could not resist this perceptible softening in one who had always until now been so shy, holding him at arm’s length, as it were, while yet leaving in his mind the impression that he was dear to her heart. He gave one long look of love into the beautiful, blushing face upturned to his, then his arm slipped about the pliant waist and drew her close until the shining head rested against his shoulder. Looking deep into the glorious brown eyes, he whispered, in tones that trembled with emotion: “Darling, you are mine, are you not?” “Always,” she murmured back, and their lips met. The roses and the newspaper clippings fell unheeded from her lap into the grass. Her hands were locked fast in his. She was listening to such words of love as thrilled her whole being with rapture. “Now you know why I could not begin my book. I could think of nothing but you. I have adored you since first I saw your face.” “And I you,” she owned, with such delicious frankness that he was more charmed than ever. To know that she had loved him for the space of a month, it was bliss unalloyed to the man she had loved for more than two years with a passion she had believed to be the most foolish and the most hopeless the world ever knew. But that was her secret--one that she would never confess to her lover. Let him think the love dated but one month back, for they would have all time and eternity for their mutual love now. She smiled gladly at the blissful thought. Two hours went by while they sat there in the grand old garden of the Florentine villa, whispering to each other of their wonderful love--an endless theme, though the love was but one month old, when suddenly he asked: “What will your mother say to this? Perhaps she would have preferred Augustus Frayne or Lord Leigh for your husband?” She laughed, and answered confidently: “Mother will be pleased with my choice, I am sure.”