it in the Depression, and when he came home from World

"They are all the world to me," said the Colonel.

"But you must wipe them out of your memory -- unless, indeed, you mean to ask her again."

"I do not say so; but I do not wish to rob myself of the chance. It may be that I shall. Of course I should tomorrow if I thought there was a hope. Tomorrow there would be none -- but I should like to know, that I could find her again in hands so friendly as yours, if at the end of a month I should think myself strong enough to encounter the risk of another refusal. Would Sir Harry allow her to remain here for another month?"

"He would say, probably, nothing about it."

"My plan is this," he continued; "let her remain here, say, for three weeks or a month. Do you continue all your kindness to her -- if not for her sake then for mine. Let her feel that she is made one of yourselves, as you say."

"That will be hard," said Lady Albury.

"It would not be hard if you thought that she was going to become so at last. Try it, for my sake. Say not a word to her about me -- though not shunning my name. Be to her as though I had told you nothing of this. Then when the period is over I will come again -- if I find that I can do so. If my love is still stronger than my sense of self-respect, I shall do so." All this Lady Albury promised to do, and then the interview between them was over.

"Colonel Stubbs is going to Aldershot tomorrow," said she to Ayala in the drawing-room after dinner. "He finds now that he cannot very well remain away." There was no hesitation in her voice as she said this, and no look in her eye which taught Ayala to suppose that she had heard anything of what had occurred in the wood.