She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he had been once or twice to-night.

“Do you not think?” he asked, after a while as they stood by the gate, “that I should have a sweet answer soon?”

Her eyes fell. The death song of the crepe-myrtle, aroused by a south wind suddenly awakened, smote her painfully.

“You know—you know how it is, Richard”—

“How it was—Alice. But think—life is a practical—a serious thing. We all have had our romances. They are the heritage of dreaming youth. We outlive them—it is best that we should. Our spiritual life follows the law of all other life, and spiritually we are not the same this year that we were last. Nor will we be the next. It is always change—change—even as the body changes. Environment has more to do with what we are, what we think and feel—than anything else. If you will marry me you will soon love me—it is the law of love to beget love. You will forget all the lesser loves in the great love of your life. Do you not know it, feel it, Sweet?”

She looked at him surprised. Never before had he used any term of endearment to her. There was a hard, still and subtle yet determined light in his eyes.

“Richard—Richard—you—I”—

“See,” he said, taking from his vest pocket a magnificent ring set in an exquisite old setting—inherited from his grandmother, and it had been her engagement ring. “See, Alice, let me put this on to-night.”

He took her hand—it thrilled him as he had never been thrilled before. This impure man, who had made the winning of women a plaything, trembled with the fear of it as he took in his own the hand so pure that not even his touch could awaken sensuality in it. The odor of her beautiful hair floated up to him as he bent over. A wave of hot passion swept over him—for with him love was passion—and his reason, for a moment, was swept from its seat. Then almost beside himself for love of this woman, so different from any he had ever known, he opened his arms to fold her in one overpowering, conquering embrace.

It was but a second and more a habit than thought—he who had never before hesitated to do it.