Fanshawe Regis? Don’t you see that when we go in papa is there? You would not like me to write up in big letters—“I have gone over to the enemy—I don’t belong to you any longer. You know, John, it would be true. I am not his now, poor papa, and he is so fond of me; but you would not like me to put that on a flag and have it[Pg 15] carried before me; you would not be so cruel to papa?”

[Pg 15]

“I am a poor mortal,” said John, “I almost think I could be cruel. If you are not his, are you mine? Say so, you little Queen of Shadows, and I will try to remember it and comfort my heart.”

“Whose else should I be?” whispered Kate. And the lover’s satisfaction attained for a moment to that point of perfection which lasts but for a moment. His heart seemed to stop beating in that ineffable fulness of content. He took her into his arms in the soft summer darkness—two shadows in a world of shadow. Everything around them, everything before them, was dim with mist. Nothing could be more uncertain than their prospects, a fact which John, at least, had begun to realise fully. The whole scene was an illustration of the words which were so often in his heart. Uncertain gusts of balmy wind, now from one quarter, now from another, agitated the trees overhead. The faint twilight of the skies confused all outlines—the darkness under the trees obliterated every[Pg 16] living thing—little mysterious thrills of movement, of the leaves, of the air, of invisible insects or roosted birds, were about them. “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.” But amid these shadows for one moment John caught a passing gleam of satisfaction and delight.

[Pg 16]

Mr Crediton was in the drawing-room all alone when they went in. Had he been prudent he would have gone to his library, as he usually did, and spared himself the sight; but this night a jealous curiosity had possessed him. To see his child, who had been his for all these years, come in with dazzled, dazzling eyes, and that soft blush on her cheek, and her arm, even as they entered the room, lingering within that of her lover, was very hard upon him. Confound him! he said in his heart, although he knew well that but for John he would have had no child. He noted the change which came over Kate—that change which chilled her lover, and went through him like a blast from the snow-hills—without any pleasure, almost with additional irritation. She is not even[Pg 17] frank, as she used to be, he said to himself. She puts on a face to cheat me, and to make me believe I am something to her still; and it might almost be said that Mr 

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