"Ask him to come up!" said Hilary, steadying her voice with an effort.
A moment later she rose to receive the man she loved. And her heart suddenly ceased to beat.
He came straight forward. The last light of the day shone on his smooth brown face, with its steady eyes and strong mouth.
"Yes," he said, and still through his quiet tones she seemed to hear a faint echo of the subdued twang which dwellers in the Far West sometimes acquire. "I, John Merrivale, late of California, beg to render to you, Hilary St. Orme, in addition to my respectful homage, that freedom for which you have not deigned to ask."
She stared at him dumbly, one hand pressed against her breast. The ripple of the river ran softly through the silence. Slowly at last Merrivale turned to go.
And then sharply, uncertainly, she spoke.
She moved close to him and laid her hand on the flower-bedecked balustrade, trembling very much.
"Why have you done this?" Her quivering voice sounded like a prayer.
He hesitated, then answered her quietly through the gloom.
"And what did you hope to gain by it?" breathed Hilary.
He did not answer, and she drew a little nearer as though his silence reassured her.
"Wouldn't it have saved a lot of trouble," she said, her voice very low but no longer uncertain, "if you had given me my freedom in the first place? Don't you think you ought to have done that?"
"I don't know," Merrivale said. "That fellow spoilt my game. So I offer it to you now--with apologies."
"I should have appreciated it--in the first place," said Hilary, and suddenly there was a ripple of laughter in her voice like an echo of the water below them. "But now I--I--have no use for it. It's too late. Do you know, Jack, I'm not sure he did spoil your game after all!"
He turned towards her swiftly, and she thrust out her hands to him with a quick sob that became a laugh as she felt his arms about her.
"You hairless monster!" she said. "What woman ever wanted freedom when she could have--Love?"
Two days later Viscount Merrivale's friends at the club read with interest and some amusement the announcement that his marriage to Miss Hilary St. Orme had been fixed to take place on the last day of the month.
A high laugh rang with a note of childlike merriment from the far end of the coffee-room as Bernard Merefleet, who was generally considered a bear on account of his retiring disposition, entered and took his seat near the door. It was a decidedly infectious laugh and perhaps for this reason it was the first detail to catch his attention and to excite his disapproval.