They were standing under the shadow of the
hawthorn. He stooped gravely down, and kissed her
glove-covered fingers.

"I trust that you may never have cause to regret
your decision," he said.

"I trust that you never may," she cried, with a
heaving breast.

There were tears in her eyes, and her lips
twitched with some strong emotion.

"Come into the sunshine again," said he. "It is
the great restorative. Your nerves are shaken. Some
little congestion of the medulla and pons. It is
always instructive to reduce psychic or
emotional conditions to their physical
equivalents. You feel that your anchor is still firm
in a bottom of ascertained fact."

"But it is so dreadfully unromantic," said Mrs.
O'James, with her old twinkle.

"Romance is the offspring of imagination and of
ignorance. Where science throws her calm, clear
light there is happily no room for romance."

"But is not love romance?" she asked.