Not till half an hour had passed did she venture to obey the glances which her all but avowed lover cast towards her in conversation.

He was so much at ease, so like what she had always known him, that Monica asked herself whether she had not mistaken the meaning of his homage.

One moment she hoped it might be so; the next, she longed for some sign of passionate devotion, and thought with anguish of the day, now so near, when he would be gone for ever.

This, she ardently believed, was the man who should have been her husband.

Him she could love with heart and soul, could make his will her absolute law, could live on his smiles, could devote herself to his interests.