A fear was creeping over her. “Why have you come back?” she asked. “Your friends, that you never had any. And your enemies, that they are always the latest,” she informed him.!

“And mind your p’s and q’s,” she added. “You’re in a difficult position. And not all the eyes watching you are friendly.” It was hard not to. She wanted to tell him that he was all wrong—at least, so far as she was concerned. It. was not the conqueror she loved in him; it was the fighter. Not in the hour of triumph but in the hour of despair she would have yearned to put her arms about him. “Unpopularity, abuse, failure,” it was against the fear of such that she would have guarded him. Yes, she had dreamed of leadership, influence, command. But it was the leadership of the valiant few against the hosts of the oppressors that she claimed. Wealth, honours! Would she have given up a life of ease, shut herself off from society, if these had been her standards? “Mésalliance!” Had the male animal no instinct, telling it when it was loved with all a woman’s being, so that any other union would be her degradation.

Joan told her plans. “You’ll be able to get along without me for a little while?” she asked doubtfully. And then, as fate would have it, the first lesson happened to be the story of Jonah and the whale. Half a dozen shocked faces turned suddenly towards her told Joan that at some point in the thrilling history she must unconsciously have laughed. Fortunately she was alone in the pew, and feeling herself scarlet, squeezed herself into its farthest corner and drew down her veil. She placed the ring on her finger and held out her hand. “I might have been measured for it,” she said. “I wonder how he knew.”