This appeal, unprincipled as it was, subdued her instantly.

"Oh, forgive me!" she said, putting out her hand with the prettiest penitence. "I might have known you better than that. I didn't mean it. Please say you forgive me, and—and call me Maud again!"

Relief at being supplied with a missing clue made Peter reckless; indeed, it is to be feared that demoralisation had already set in; he took the hand she gave him, and it did not occur to him to let it go immediately.

"Maud, then," he said obediently; "I forgive you, Maud."

It was a prettier name to pronounce than Sophia.

"How curious it is," she was saying, dreamily, as she nestled comfortably in her chair beside him, "that, up to the very moment when you rushed forward that day, I scarcely gave your existence a thought! And now—how little we ever know what is going to happen to us, do we?"

["Or what has happened, for that matter!" he thought.] This time he would not commit himself to details until he could learn