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 echo in her own breast, and therefore she was afraid. She wondered as she walked by his side if she would ever come to love him with the same devotion which he showed towards her. It might be, in time, she thought; and with the thought she comforted herself. Her life seemed identified with this man's: they had met in the strangest fashion: it could not be that blind fate had thrown them together for aught but good purpose. Elisabeth was somewhat fatalistic in her notions—it appeared to her that she had purposely been led to Hepworth, and with this reflection she comforted herself for the future.

So the summer passed on and now the day of the wedding was close at hand, and Hepworth rode across the smiling meadows thinking of the morrow.