My course has been so perfectly absurd that I
must laugh in spite of myself;" and he did laugh so naturally and
genially that Grace was constrained to join him, although the trouble
and perplexity did not wholly vanish from her eyes.
"And now," he concluded, "that I have experienced my first natural
surprise, I will do more than sensibly accept the situation. I
congratulate you upon it as no one else can. Had I a sister I would
rather that she married Hilland than any other man in the world. We
thus start on the right basis for friendship, and there need be no
awkward restraint on either side. I must now pay my respects to my
aunt, or I shall lose not only her good graces but my supper also;"
and with a smiling bow he turned and walked rapidly up the path, and
disappeared within Mrs. Mayburn's open door.
Grace looked after him, and the perplexed contraction of her brow
deepened. She picked up Hilland's letter, and slowly and musingly
folded it. Suddenly she pressed a fervent kiss upon it, and murmured:
"Thank God, the writer of this has blood in his veins; and yet--and
yet--he looked at first as if he had received a mortal wound, and--
and--all the time I felt that he suffered.
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