"Of course," he replied. "I says to myself to-night, 'I hope Mark is
as fortunate,' I says, when I saw them two a----"

"What two?" I exclaimed, lifting myself half out of my chair in my
eagerness.

"Why, Tim and her," Perry answered. "Ain't you heard it yet, Mark? Am
I the first to know?"

"Tim and her," I cried. "Tim and Mary?"

"Yes," said Perry.

He saw now that he was imparting strange news to me. In my sudden
agitation he divined that that news had struck hard home, and that I
was not blessed with his own philosophic nature. The smile left his
face. He stepped to me, as I sat there in the chair staring vacantly
into the fire, and laid a hand on my shoulder.

"I thought of course you knowd it," he said gently. "I thought of
course you knowd all about it, and when I seen them up there to-night,
her a-holdin' to him so lovin', says I to myself, 'How pleased Mark
will be--he thinks so much of Tim and Mary.'"

Tim's minute! I knew now why it was so long. I should have known it
long ago. I feared to ask Perry what he had seen. I divined it. I
had debated with myself too much the strangeness of Mary's promise, and
often in the last few days there had come over me a vague fear that I
was treading in the clouds. She had told me again and again that she