CHAPTER XVI.
A BETROTHAL DAY.
Gregory Leslie, seated before his easel, saw the young couple returning to the house. No need to tell him what had happened. The triumphant lover was in every line of Earle's face. Gregory Leslie sighed. Earle had won the most beautiful girl in England for his wife; but the artist was a deep student of human nature, and he read in Doris a disposition intensely worldly and selfish, an ambition that nothing could satisfy, a moral weakness that would break a promise as easily as Samson broke the seven green withes.
Doris ran away from Earle into the garden, and left him to enter the house alone. Gregory was the first one he saw.
"Wish me joy!" he cried, exultantly.
"With all my heart. What you have won, may you keep."
"I have no fear," said Earle, the gentleman. "She loves me."
"You have the original; I the picture. This picture will wake the curiosity of the world," said Gregory, looking at his work.
"But you will not tell who or where is the original? I do not wish my Doris to be pursued by a crowd of idle, curious people."
"On honor, no," said Gregory, holding out his hand.