But I expect she will know very well that the same business which took me to that infernal temperance meeting has taken me to London." Rachel was vaguely relieved when Dick went off next morning.

She was not, as a rule, oppressed by the attentions she received from young men, which in due season became "marked," and then resulted in proposals neatly or clumsily expressed.

But she was disturbed when she thought of Dick, and his departure was like the removal of a weight, not a heavy, but still a perceptible one.

For Rachel was aware that Dick was in deadly earnest, and that his love was growing steadily, almost unconsciously, was accumulating like snow, flake by flake, upon a mountain-side.

Some day, perhaps not for a long time, but some day, there would be an avalanche, and, in his own language, she "would be in it.".