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122 than she had anticipated. Anyhow, she was preparing Maud for something dreadful.

But it seemed as if Maud refused to be prepared. She laughed.

"Darling, you look like Lady Macbeth," she said. "Do begin now for the revelations."

Lucia sat straight up and looked Maud full in the face.

"I am engaged to be married," she said—"I am engaged to Edgar Brayton."

For half a second Maud shrank back as if a blow had been aimed at her. But the movement was as instinctive as the wincing from pain; it was not her will that dictated it. Then she took both Lucia's hands in hers.

"Oh, Lucia, Lucia!" she said. "I—I know you will be very happy. Just give me a moment—just five seconds."

Scarcely so many passed, and then Maud drew Lucia's face to hers, and kissed her.

"Ah, my darling, I congratulate you most sincerely," she said. "I was a little brute at first, and found that I couldn't. But I am all right again now. I do congratulate you. I do! Friends, indeed! What would my friendship be worth if I could think—good gracious!"

Lucia's eyes suddenly filled with tears—genuine ones. She was immensely touched.

"Oh, Maud, really, really?" she asked. "Even though I knew all the time what you told me last June?"

Maud smiled—that quiet, serene smile which was so characteristic of her, and lay on her face as sunlight lies on the yellow harvest fields. It lacked the fire and animation that would have been more characteristic of her years, and it had about it the trustful happiness of those to whom experience has brought no unsweetening of their nature. Above all, her smile was full of love rather than enjoyment, of happiness rather than pleasure.

"Yes, but what I told you in June was not my fault," she said; "nor is what you tell me in September yours. Love is like that, I think, Lucia. It comes, it happens."

For one moment Lucia thought of telling Maud all; not only the things that she would certainly find out afterwards, like the fact of her engagement, but the things which, it was to be hoped, nobody would ever find out—namely, the spirit in which she had set out for the capture of this man, from no motive of love, but