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Valuing and Investing in
Equities

CROCI: Cash Return on Capital

Investment

Francesco Curto
Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Letter to the reader

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The real investor, a connoisseur of financial markets

Investment and speculation

Investment is a social and not an exact science

 The education of an investor

Democratisation and specialisation

The investment muddle

Fundamental analysis as a way forward

Chapter 1. Investment and valuation

Abstract

Chapter Outline

The challenge of the real equity investors

The fundamentals of equities investing: capital and returns

The two sides of the investment process in an equation

The many names associated with the components of the

investment equation

The many ways of presenting the investment equation

The dark and the bright sides of valuation and how they drive
price changes

Modelling earnings into perpetuity and the relative challenges

Section 1: CROCI on valuation

Section 1. CROCI on valuation

Why valuation is so important for investor

Chapter 2. Valuing non-financial companies

Abstract

Chapter Outline

The price-to-earnings ratio: what you see is not what you get

The shortfalls of accounting valuation are well known, or are

they?

The invisible hand at work in valuation

Two wrongs do not make one right: risk premia and EV/EBITDA

Sector and country risk premia

Other valuation ratios are not the solution for real investors

How using accounting data also creates problems for portfolio

construction

Gazprom: why valuation was not attractive after it was adjusted

Nothing new – Coca Cola and Exxon in the 1980s

CROCI as a form of due diligence to assess the value of

companies

Moving from a reported to an investment basis

A peek at our due diligence process

The impact of such adjustments on valuation of sectors and

regions

Some examples of adjustments and their impact on valuation

Chapter 3. The analytical idiosyncrasies of banks

Abstract

Chapter Outline

Banks, an important sector filled with valuation ambiguities

CROCI and banks

The creation of a CROCI banks model

The postcrisis financial reforms – Basel III

After Basel III

Difficulties in covering the insurance subsector

CROCI’s adjustments to the valuation of banks

The impact of our adjustments on valuation and terms of

comparison with nonfinancial companies

Epilogue: banks and the financial crisis

Chapter 4. Stock picking based on economic fundamentals

Abstract

Chapter Outline

The challenges of looking at the future

Stock analysis based on price, earnings and the discount rate

The discount rate – the dark side of valuation

The bright side of valuation

 Conclusions

Section 2: CROCI on investing

Section 2. CROCI on investing

Introduction

CROCI adjustments to data – is it worth the effort?

Chapter 5. The performance of economic value

Abstract

Chapter Outline

How index providers address the concept of value in the market

The CROCI approach to value

A Fama and French test on the performance of value using

CROCI data

Value investing using CROCI

The risks of concentrated value investment strategies

Investment and portfolio construction

Chapter 6. Value investing and dividends

Abstract

Chapter Outline
 Dividend is an important component of your total equity return

High dividend yield strategies do not give exposure to

attractively valued stocks

Building an economic approach to a dividend yield strategy

Conclusions

Chapter 7. Diversified investments: CROCI real earnings weighted

Abstract

Chapter Outline

Market cap-weighted indices do not serve Real Investors well

The Real Investor and the Efficient Market Hypothesis

Fundamental weighting – the challenge is in the implementation

Earnings is the preferred fundamental weighting factor

Weighting by book (or operating assets) does not give exposure

to real value

Fundamental weighting and growth

CROCI Real Earnings Weighting – methodology, operational

characteristics and performance

Conclusion

Appendix

Chapter 8. Thematic investments – CROCI intellectual capital

 Abstract

Chapter Outline

The rising importance of intellectual capital in the investment

world

The new economy is driving growth

Weak revenue growth for the average listed stock

Earnings growth reflect underlying macroeconomic changes

CROCI intellectual capital

Conclusion

Appendix

Section 3: Through the looking glass

Section 3. Through the looking glass

Introduction

Chapter 9. Equities, inflation and valuation

Abstract

Chapter Outline

How inflation affects valuation - a model based approach

Evidence confirms the hypotheses on how inflation impacts

valuation
 A recap of how inflation affects accounts and valuation

Appendix

Chapter 10. Bubbles in equities

Abstract

Chapter Outline

Introduction

Bubbles seen through CROCI’s lens

Bubbles can result in boom and bust cycles

Equity bubble at the end of 2018 and implications

Chapter 11. Odysseus on valuing and investing in equities

Abstract

Chapter Outline

Twenty years of CROCI fundamental analysis in four pages

Bibliography

Index
Copyright
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS, United Kingdom
525 B Street, Suite 1650, San Diego, CA 92101, United States
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United
Kingdom

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on
how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s
permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such
as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing
Agency, can be found at our website:
www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are

protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be
noted herein).

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing.
As new research and experience broaden our understanding,
changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical
treatment may become necessary.
 Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own
experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any
information, methods, compounds, or experiments described
herein. In using such information or methods they should be
mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including
parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the
authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury
and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products
liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of
any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the
material herein.

Francesco Curto is the Head of the CROCI Investment Valuation Group

and the Head of the Research House at DWS, one of the world's leading
asset managers.
The views expressed in this book are the author’s own views and are not the
views of any of DWS Group GmbH & Co. KGaA or any of its affiliated
companies (“DWS Group”).
The information and opinions contained in this document are for
information and discussion purposes only, do not constitute a financial
promotion or do not purport to be fully complete. Whilst the author has
used his best efforts to ensure the accuracy or completeness of any
information continued herein, no reliance may be placed for any purpose on
the information or opinions contained in this book for their accuracy or
completeness. No representation, warranty or undertaking, express or
implied, is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information or
opinions contained in this book and no liability accepted for the accuracy or
completeness of any such information or opinions.
This book does not constitute or form part of any offer to issue or sell, or any
solicitation of any offer to subscribe or purchase, any shares or any other
interests or services nor shall it or the fact of its distribution form the basis
of, or be relied on in connection with, any contract thereof. This book is not
intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, investment advice or
as an offer, solicitation or recommendation of any financial instruments.
CROCI© is a registered trademark of DWS Group.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of
Congress

ISBN: 978-0-12-813848-9

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Dedication

To Chantal, Nicolas, Emanuel and Béatrice.

To my mother, Cosima, and my sisters, Giovanna, Anna, Daniela.

To Italy and Salento, that I miss more than I can say.

To my friends, ‘fore te capu’.

Letter to the reader
Dear reader,
CROCI® is a DWS Group trademark that stands for Cash Return
on Capital Invested. The acronym refers to a valuation technique
used for research and investments. It was coined by a group of
friends who arrived at DB in the mid-1990s. Back then, the single
European financial market was still in the making, and so comparing
valuations of companies across Europe was a challenge. CROCI
enabled full comparability across sectors and markets, providing an
excellent basis for market analysis and investments.
In the early days, the team spent what now seems like an endless
number of meetings explaining how we adjust valuation and why.
Confusion was the norm, and the most common question was
“why?” Why do you go through so much pain? Why do you make
this adjustment? Our answer was to highlight the errors of
traditional approaches and explain why adjustments to valuations
were required. Now the answer is different: “we do this because it is
what you would do if you were buying a company with your own
money”. That is the simple reality: the moment that you consider
buying a listed stock, you are about to buy a piece of a company. If
you buy a piece of a company, then you perform due diligence on its
accounts, making the necessary adjustments to ensure a proper
economic basis for valuing the company. Some companies are easy
to analyse, others are more complicated, and others still are
impossible. If the latter is the case, then you move on to the next one.
This is what you would do if you were buying the company with
your own money. As agents we ought to do the same. Once you
have a proper basis for comparing valuations, how should you build
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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 "Ah, yes," he said, smiling with innocence. "He ver' good speak
tongues. He vat-you-call my neveu—you unnerstan' that vord?"

Yes, the man understood. Nephew was near enough.

"Smeet, de name. My seester make marriage wid Mons. Smeet. He my

neveu."

"Indeed? Was he brought up in England, then?"

"Brought up" was too idiomatic for Vronsky. When it had been
explained he said, "Part one, part de oder. Part England, part France. His
moder veuve depuis longtemps."

This likewise had to be explained.

"I would say she have no more a man," said Vronsky, making confusion
worse confounded by his explanation.

This difficulty, however, was also solved. And he went on to mention

casually that his nephew and he had come from France together about six
months before—a time when, as the detective, whose name, by the bye, was
Burnett, knew, Felix Vanston was in jail. There was an air of genial
simplicity about Vronsky, a kindliness in his beautiful soft dark eyes, which
was misleading. Burnett had found out from inquiries that he was an
engineer, an inventor, who had come to push his patent. He did not see how
he could be a member of the Anarchist gang which had sucked poor Felix
in. Moreover, probabilities considered, he could hardly be at Basingstoke
by appointment.

He owned candidly that he had risked all he had in order to bring his
patent to the notice of prominent English mine owners, so that his "neveu"
had been obliged to find work meanwhile to support himself. Now he hoped
that all was plain sailing. Then he wished them good-night and went to bed,
leaving Burnett pretty sure that he had missed the clew somewhere, and
determined to take the last train to Plymouth, and try to pick it up there,
before wasting more time in Basingstoke.
 He was nowhere to be seen when Felix stepped ashore next morning.
The young man hurried to his work, for he had sat up to write to Rona and
overslept in consequence. At the dinner-hour he went to the post-office to
see, before posting his letter, whether there was one for him. The spy was
still not in sight, and the glorious idea that he had departed rejoiced the
heart of Felix. There was a letter for him. It was written on very thick paper,
with a crest in purple upon the envelope. He stared at the crest, which was
his own. Rona's clear, immature hand had addressed the letter; but it was
obviously written on Normansgrave stationery.

He had promised to look in on Vronsky at dinner-time, and have some

bread and cheese with him, so he hastened to the inn without opening the
letter, or posting his own. At the first possible moment he broke the seal,
and read the contents with surprise.

Rona was in his brother's house. She described it with rapture. She was
evidently treated as an equal, and as evidently found this quite natural. They
were very kind, she had never been so happy. She was glad and thankful
that David had pulled her back when she tried to fling herself upon the
railway.

Inclosed with her letter was a brief, kind note from Miss Rawson,
saying that they were much interested in Rona, and could see that the two
young people were guarding some kind of a secret. They were ready to
befriend the girl in a substantial way, but this must be upon condition of
perfect frankness on his part. They hoped that he would come, on his return
from Basingstoke, and explain to them in confidence how he and his sister
came to be in such a plight, as they saw quite well that Rona was a well-
brought-up girl, carefully educated, and they realized that some strong
reason for her unaccountable destitution must exist.

Here was a dilemma for poor Felix. Rona urged him to allow her to
make a clean breast of things. He knew that she could not tell her story
without Denzil's becoming aware of his identity, since he must have
received the letter he had left for him upon the table of his room at Hawkins
Row.

He sat plunged in disquieting thought.

 Vronsky was out, at the post-office, and Felix was alone in the parlor,
among the shrouded and bulky packages of model machinery.

With a new clear-sightedness, born of harsh experience, the young man

faced the thought of taking the girl away with him, out of England. Every
pulse in his newly-stirred manhood was urging him to this course.

Till Rona fell into his arms he had had no object in life. Now she was
his object in life. A new kind of excitement, white and blazing, flamed up in
him. Let them be once married, no police, no interfering uncles could part
them. She was young, but not too young for love. He could cherish her....

On a pound a week?

For a moment he saw the other side of the medal—saw the slender
figure bowed with household toil, the hands—which to him had seemed
like a child's hands—roughened with hard work.

Could he propose such a course? Would she agree? Suppose she refused
to marry him, what could be done in that case? Feeling as he did, could he
act the big-brotherly rôle? He told himself that he could. He could do
anything for her that she demanded of him.

... And she was there, at Normansgrave, under the roof which had
sheltered his infancy and boyhood! Why, she might even be sleeping in his
old room, for aught he knew to the contrary!

He could picture her, moving through the rooms, sitting in the hall,
crossing the trim lawns. It was the right home for her.

And it appeared that it was actually offered to her! Denzil and Miss
Rawson were willing, he gathered, to keep her there. If, as seemed fairly
certain, the detective Burnett did not know where she was, were not their
hands far more competent than his to guard her from evil?

With such thoughts he was struggling when Vronsky came in. He

unreservedly told him all, and translated Miss Rawson's letter to him. The
Russian listened gravely, and was silent for a while. Then he said, "But this
seems the solution of the problem, does it not?"

"How?" asked Felix, hoping against hope, yet guessing that Vronsky's
answer would be:

"They offer to befriend her—ask them to do so—accept their offer, until

such time as you can keep the girl better than you can now." He saw the
light fade out of the young man's sensitive face, and he sat down near him.

"My son, she is too young to marry you and to rough it. But she cannot
go about with you and me, unless you and she are married. You see that?"

"I have been trying not to see it for the past hour," faltered Felix.

Then Vronsky grew eloquent. There was no doubt that these kind
English people had taken a fancy to the girl. Then he, Felix, with his
miserable record and doubtful prospects, had no right to interfere. At
Normansgrave she would be safe and happy. What he had to do was just to
disappear from view until he had retrieved himself.

He fought against argument, but he was contending against his own

better sense all the time.

By a most fortunate chance, the detective had missed the clew. And, as
he had done so, Veronica was most probably safer at Normansgrave than
anywhere else in England.

It may as well be mentioned here, that Mr. Burnett, on arriving at

Plymouth, heard of the embarkation of a couple answering with some
exactitude to those of whom he was in search, in a cargo boat, for America.
He asked his employers whether he should go to America in a fast steamer
and intercept them on landing; but this was too great an expense for Rankin
Leigh to undertake. The girl was gone. Well, he was relieved of the
necessity for keeping her. He called off the pursuit, and there the matter
rested.
 Felix naturally did not know this. But he could see that, if he were out
of England, the risk of Veronica's being tracked was halved.

But on one point he was obstinate. He would, at all costs, see the girl
once more before he went away out of her life.

How could he know how she felt about it? Suppose she did not wish to
be left behind? If that were so, he vowed emphatically that he would take
her with him, prudence or no prudence.

Vronsky thought him mad, but sympathized with him in every fiber of
his emotional being. Together they evolved a plan. Felix knew every nook
and corner of the home which now sheltered his waif. He knew the place
where it would be safest to meet, he knew the hour when it could be done
with least risk.

Down at the far end of the shrubbery which skirted the paddock was an
old summer-house, long since passed out of use, which the gardener each
winter filled with the brushwood intended for pea-sticks next year. It was in
the most solitary part of the grounds, and the approach to it, for one who
knew as he knew every inch of the way, was covered, all along from the
entrance to the park. Every soul at Normansgrave went to evening service at
six o'clock on a Sunday evening, except those who were left in charge of
the house. He knew Rona could not yet walk as far as the church, and that
no power could induce Denzil to have out the motor on Sunday evening.

He wrote to her, careful not to betray his own knowledge of the

grounds, skilfully suggesting that there might be some arbor wherein a
meeting could take place.

She sent a line in reply, describing what he knew so well, and saying
she would do her best to be there, should the evening be fine.

He received her answer on Saturday morning, and set about making his
final arrangements.

It became evident during the day that Burnett had left the town, and this
gave greater freedom to his movements.
 He received his wages, told them at the timber-yard that he should not
be coming back on Monday, and went down to the abode of Old Man
Doggett, to make him a present and take leave of him. Doggett was
cordially pleased to hear of his good fortune in being given work by the
Russian engineer, and told him he would always do him a good turn if it
came his way.

That being so, Felix's request was at once preferred. Comrade Dawkes
was to know nothing of his movements. If he inquired, as he surely would
do, upon the next arrival of the Sarah Dawkes at Limehouse wharf what
had become of the runaways, the story was to be the same that he had given
to the detective; namely, that Felix and the girl had tramped to Plymouth
and there embarked for America.

He earnestly assured Mr. Doggett that a consistent adherence to this

story might be worth quite a considerable amount of whisky and tobacco.

The force of the argument seemed great, as thus stated; and Felix wrote
down the exact address of his late employer, in order to be able to send a
postal order when circumstances connected with his exchequer should
enable him to do so.

On Sunday morning Vronsky and he left Basingstoke with the model

machinery and all their other effects. At Weybridge the young man left the
train, Vronsky proceeding to London without him; and Felix started upon
his ten mile walk in some trepidation.

He was now respectably dressed, and might be recognized by any native

in the regions of his old home. But he was greatly altered. He had not been
to Normansgrave, except on the occasion of his mother's funeral, since he
was seventeen. He was now twenty-three, but looked far older, with the
strain of his disgrace printed in deep lines upon his sensitive features. He
had been clean-shaven, but the difficulties connected with shaving on board
the barge had induced him to allow his beard and mustache to grow. The
young, soft dark beard gave him a foreign look.

The only thing upon which he ventured in the way of disguise was a
pair of blue-tinted spectacles. As a matter of fact, his eyesight was perfect,
and no one who had known him in boyhood would have connected the idea
of Felix and weak eyes.

He put on a necktie of a kind which in his own proper person he would

never have worn; and though he could not suppose that he could be seen at
close quarters by anybody who had known him well without recognition,
ultimate, if not instantaneous, he yet felt it possible that even a friend
should not know him at a glance.

From the police he thought the risk not great. He did not suppose that
Rankin Leigh had more than one agent, and his agent had left the
neighborhood. The police were not looking for Felix Vanston alive, but for
a corpse, which, if their theories were true, could not be in the place where
he now was. And even were they seeking for him alive, they would not seek
anywhere near his old home.

If he could pass unrecognized by any of the natives round about

Normansgrave, all would be well.

And well he knew the habits and haunts of the natives upon a fine
spring Sunday!

If he could not keep out of people's way, with his foot upon his native
heath, it was a pity!

And moreover, there was a point in his meditations, when risk ceased to
count, and a mounting excitement took his breath and made the lovely
landscape reel before his dazzled eyes. He was going to see Rona—the girl
who was a stranger—the girl who was everything—the girl whom he had
snatched from the wolves. Nothing else really mattered. No considerations
of prudence must be allowed to intervene. Who knew what might, or might
not, happen when they actually met?

He had taken some food in his pockets, and on leaving the station he
made for the woods. They were full of Sunday strollers; but these, like a
flock of sheep, kept all to beaten tracks, and Felix knew every wild hollow
and deep thicket in the countryside. He plunged away deep in the glorious
spring woodland, amid a white smother of wild cherry bloom, contrasting
with the delicate bronze and purple of the bursting hazel bushes. The pale
green tips of the larches rose as feathery and faint, as an exquisite dream. It
was a wood of fairyland.

There, hidden away, he lay in solitude, eating his bread and cheese,
drinking from a tiny spring which he knew like an intimate friend, and
trying to still the wild thoughts in his heart by reading a book he had
brought in his pocket. But his heart refused to be stilled. He had had
nothing to love for so long—nothing ever to love much, for his feeling for
his mother had been merely instinctive, and had grown less with advancing
intelligence. Now all of a sudden, he loved—for no reason than because a
helpless creature had sought his protection. He was going to look once more
into her "lost dog" eyes. And to say good-by, after ... that was the bitter
thing.

As afternoon faded into evening, he walked by hidden ways down to the

old home. The air was full of church bells. He knew every note, and they
cried out to him of his boyhood, of his days of innocence and youth. He
shook with emotion, he could have wept for the thought of those two dread
years cut from his wayward life.

As he approached the corner of the shrubbery he did not meet a soul. All
was whelmed in Sabbath peace and stillness. Then he noticed something
fresh. A young plantation of healthy-looking beech and copper beech,
fenced round from the cattle in the park. He stopped to look at that; and as
he halted he saw someone strolling along through the pasture grass,
apparently bound for an inspection of this very plantation. It was his brother
Denzil. He wore his Sunday clothes, and a decorous hat, and held his Prayer
Book under his arm. He stood in contemplation of the promising growth of
his new venture—and his reprobate brother stood behind the trees of the
shrubbery in contemplation of him.

Then a voice called, "Denzil! Denzil! Are you coming?"

The sound of steps on the gravel sounded, not at all far from where he
stood. Miss Rawson was coming down the long drive, and by her side,
walking slowly, was a girl as tall as she herself, with chestnut hair falling
below her waist, and with a cloak wrapped about her to shelter her from the
keen air of the April evening.

CHAPTER XII

RONA'S KNIGHT
"Lady," he said, "your lands lie burnt
And waste: to meet your foe
All fear: this have I seen and learnt.
Say that it shall be so,
And I will go."

****

And there the sunset skies unseal'd

Like lands he never knew,
Beyond to-morrow's battlefield
Lay open out of view
To ride into.
—D. G. ROSSETTI.

This was something new—something for which Felix, unused to

women, to society, to youth and charm, was oddly unprepared. Was that
Rona? That young immortal, with faintly blooming cheeks, elastic tread,
and all those burnished locks? As frequently happens to girls of her age, she
had grown considerably taller during the weeks of her illness.

The young man gazing at her felt his heart shaken by a pain which was
worse than anything he had suffered yet. He was a skulking fugitive, a
disgraced man, one who had taken dark oaths against society and authority,
and was seeking to flee from the men who would have held him to them.
What link was there between him and Veronica Leigh?

He bitterly recalled the proverb, "Necessity makes strange bed-fellows."

Necessity had obliged the maiden, in the throes of her desperate struggle for
liberty, to trust herself to him for a few short hours. Those hours had
changed the face of the world for him. For her they were no doubt already
half-forgotten. She had, as it were, set her foot upon his neck to climb out of
the pit. Here she was once more, seated at her ease among the elect, safe,
cherished, and no more in need of her slum companion. He thought of the
kindly, peremptory, half-patronizing letter he had written to her, and grew
hot all over to think that he had dared.

The figures of the three were disappearing down the drive together. He
crept into the summer-house, where there were not so many pea-sticks as
usual, sat down upon the dusty bench, and let his head drop into his hands.
There was a swelling at his throat as if he must choke. The air was full of
the tossing chimes, which, as he sat there, changed to the monotonous
stroke of the five minutes bell. It was a knell, ringing for him, he thought—
the knell of Felix Vanston, now forever dead and lost.

Ask her to run away and marry him, upon a pound a week!

Only in that bitter moment did he realize that he had meant to beg and
pray her to do so.

One sometimes has no measure by which to gauge height, except the

violence of one's fall.

* * * * * *
*

A sound, slight but distinct—the rattle of gravel beneath a light foot, the
rustle—indescribable—of a woman's apparel—and he lifted his dim eyes to
see Rona standing in the doorway. With no word spoken she slipped inside
the hut, round behind the bunches of sticks, to where he sat. "David—here I
am," she said, timidly.
 He made her no reply, but let his craving eyes rest upon her. She
flushed, and began to tremble. His evident misery pained her. Also, the
surprise was not only upon his side. This young man was not the ragged,
famished outcast who had grappled with her in his weakness and extremity,
dragging her back to safety as she overhung the abyss. She, too, was
smitten with the feeling that they were strangers.

Into his soul were thronging all kinds of desires and consciousnesses,
for the first time. He wished he were shaved. He wished he had a better suit;
he wished he were handsome; he longed to be rich.

True, the disfiguring blue glasses were hidden in his pocket; but even
so, what kind of a champion was he, dusty pilgrim that he was, for this
princess?

He stood up awkwardly, and his face was dyed crimson, with a shame
the more awful because it was wholly inarticulate. His first words left his
lips before he had time to consider them.

"Forgive me. I ought not to have come."

She gazed at him pitifully, her trouble growing. "Ought not to have
come? Oh, David, why? I—I thought you were—my brother."

She was overswept with a sudden consciousness—much like that which

had just overtaken the young man. After all, what was the link that bound
them? A few hours of common danger, of frantic flight? She felt curiously
friendless, and as though she had lived these past weeks under a comforting
delusion. "Why ought you not to have come?"

He said, brokenly, "I have no right." Then, with passion, "I have no
right, have I? You are happy, and among kind people of your own class. You
have no need of a ruffian like me."

He turned away his face, lest she should see the working of his features,
which he could not control. But Rona, with woman's swiftness of
apprehension, had now the key to his unexpected mood. "David," she said,
reproachfully, "are you jealous? Did you think I had forgotten you? How
silly of you! You—you can't have a very high opinion of me."

She took his hand, in a steadfast, trustful grasp. She sat down upon the
bench, and with a gentle pull drew him to sit by her. "Have I deserved it?
Am I ungrateful?" she asked, wistfully.

He held on to the hand as if he had been drowning. Its warm contact

sent comfort thrilling along his veins.

"Why should you have anything to do with me? Nobody else ever
wanted me, or cared what became of me," he stammered, incoherently.

She lifted to his her shadowy eyes, full of understanding. "Perhaps you
have not saved other people's lives at the risk of your own," she sweetly
said.

"Then you do feel—you do consider that there is a kind of link between

us," he faltered. "You don't wish me to resign you entirely? Oh—let us have
no doubt about it! I haven't much heart for life, but if I thought you would
not forget me it would make such a difference—such a difference——"

She broke in, "Forget you? Are you going away, then?"

He held his breath, for there was dismay in her clear tones. All the
emotions that in his wild youth had never been called forth till now, woke to
life and filled him with an ecstasy which made his heart pound, and his
breath pant, and the currents of his being flow together till his head swam.
"You care?" he gasped. "It matters to you whether I go or stay?"

"Matters? Oh, David! how can you?"

She turned to him impulsively. His arms went round her; and in a
moment—exalted, unlooked for, sweet with a sweetness unbelievable—her
head, with all its tumbled curls, was on his shoulder, and he was holding her
close, close, as though again she was striving to hurl herself into eternity.
 "Rona," he said at last. "Rona, I ought not to let you. I am not a fit man
for you to love!"

"You are the man that saved me," said Rona, clinging to him. "How
strange it seems. I never thought of you as a young man, somehow, until I
saw you sitting here with such a sad, grave face."

"And I," said Felix, with a depth of wonder that was almost stupefaction
—"I actually never knew that you were beautiful until this evening. But
now I know. I see everything with a new clearness. I am a man, and you are
going to be a woman in a year or two. And I want you for my wife."

She was silent, hushed with a new awe. "For your wife? Oh, David!"

"Will you?" he urged, beseeching her with eyes and hands and voice.
"Will you promise that, if I can make a home for you, you will come and
live in it? Will you give me something to work for, something to keep me
from despair? Oh, Rona, I ought not to ask it! How can I be mad enough to
ask it?"

"But of course I shall promise, if you wish it," said the girl, in her youth
and immaturity eager to promise she knew not what, eager to give joy to the
being who, apparently, depended upon her for all his hopes in life.

Even at the moment, even holding her against his heart, and feasting his
famished nature with the sweetness of her womanhood and the brilliancy of
his new hopes, her dutiful words, emphatic though they were, sent a chill
through him. In spite of his inexperience, there is an insight which love
gives; and he knew that Rona did not love him, but was merely willing that
he should love her. She was not grown up, he told himself. When she came
to be completely a woman she would love, as he now loved, with that
surrender which to him was so new, so unexampled a sensation. It was long
before he could calm down the turbulence of his emotions to anything like a
consideration of the situation. But their time was short, and after ten
minutes of more or less incoherent bliss and shy caresses, he began to
explain to Rona some of his thoughts and plans. Now that they understood
each other, these were far more easily explained than he had thought
possible.
 It appeared that the girl had not been informed of the extent of the
benevolent intentions of the Squire and Miss Rawson on her behalf.

But she was quite sensible enough to understand that, as she and David
were not really brother and sister, but desired another sort of relationship, it
would not be fitting for them to travel about together, until the time came
when they could be husband and wife.

Felix explained to her, fully and with care, the good prospect opened out
to him by the patronage of Vronsky. He was also able to make her see
clearly that it was dangerous for him to stay in England, seeing that the
police supposed him to be dead.

He ascertained, by guarded and careful questioning, that neither Denzil

nor his aunt had said a word to Rona concerning the black sheep of the
family, nor his disappearance. As far as Normansgrave was concerned, it
appeared that he was as though he had never been.

The main difficulty which Felix had foreseen in this interview, was that
of convincing Rona that they must not make a clean breast of their
circumstances, without giving her the true reason for his silence.

But on this point he found her unexpectedly amenable.

He began, with much diffidence.

"You know, Rona, you asked me in your letter, whether you might not
tell Miss Rawson everything?"

"Yes," said the girl impulsively, "but I am sorry for that. As soon as I
had written, I was sorry. Because, of course, I see that we can't do that."

He was puzzled. "You do see that we can't?"

"Certainly we can't. Because, if we did, they would have to know that

you had been in—prison—and that they shall never know through me."

He gazed at her with ever-increasing admiration. "You see that?"

 "Yes. I am growing up, you see. I think and hope I grow more sensible
every day. I am learning, learning, every minute. Oh, David, you can't think
how ignorant and foolish I am, or was. Inside those convent walls there was
no world, only the circle of our everyday life, and the question of lessons
and punishments, and being good, and being naughty, and fasts and
festivals and penances and so on. But I believe that really I have plenty of
brains, and I have a strong will too——"

—"That you have, or you never would have escaped, the determined
way you did——"

—"And I know that, if these people, who are as kind as the people in a
fairy-tale, do give me a chance to learn more, I shall take full advantage of
it. Oh, David, by the time you come back, I shall be so changed! Twice as
sensible and better instructed, and able to help you—to earn my own living,
or help you earn yours."

"You are happy here?" he wistfully asked.

"Happy? I should think so. It is such a nice place, and they are so good.
I don't mean only kind to me, but good to everyone. They do their duty all
day long, and the priest and the doctor seem to come to them for everything
they want."

"And you like the Squire?"

"Oh, very much. Not as much as I like Miss Rawson, of course. Miss
Rawson is more—more—I don't think I can describe it. She has more
mischief in her, somehow. He is fussy over little unimportant things, and he
is rather prosy sometimes. But he is very kind, and he takes such an interest
in me."

He sat gazing upon her as she spoke out her innocent thought. The idea
of her being there, in his own home, until he came to summon her forth into
the world with him, was so surpassingly sweet that it was with the utmost
difficulty that he refrained from telling her how he had first seen the light
within the walls that now sheltered her.
 "It—it would disappoint you very much if they should decide not to
keep you?"

She looked earnestly at him. "What would that mean? Would it mean
that you would take me away at once?"

"Yes. They demand that I should make a clean breast of things to them.
I can't do that. I will tell them all I can. But not everything. If they say,
'Very well, we can't keep her'—then I should have to fetch you, and we
should have to fare into the wide world together. And I swear that I would
take the same care of you that your own brother might."

He leaned forward, fervently, gazing deep into her eyes; and her lips
curved into an adorable smile. "I don't think I should be so very much
disappointed," she slowly said. "I believe you would let me learn as much
as we could afford—wouldn't you?"

"I'd worship you—you should be to me like a saint—like a thing apart

from the world," he whispered.

And she smiled happily.

After a few moments' thought, he asked her:

"You never heard of any other relative of yours, with the exception of
this one uncle?"

"No, never."

"What did the Reverend Mother tell you?"

"That both my parents were dead. That was all she knew."

"You have no sort of clew to their family? Have you nothing that
belonged to your mother?"

"I had one or two things—a pearl ring, a gold watch and chain, and a
few other things, such as a cashmere shawl and some lace. But my uncle
took them all away. There were no letters or papers of any kind: nothing
that one could find out anything from."

"Then it appears that nobody but this brute has any claim upon you?"

"As far as I know, nobody at all."

"They would not run much risk in keeping you," said Felix, his brows
knit in thought.

"I expect that was what Mr. Vanston was thinking of when he asked if I
had ever been abroad," remarked Rona. "Suppose they should let me go
abroad to be educated?"

"You would like that?"

She assented. "I want to see the world," she announced, very simply.

Felix smiled at the thought of Denzil's benevolence. He knew of old his

pleasure in a certain tepid, but always well-meant philanthropy. The
resentment and hatred of his half-brother, which for years back had filled
his heart, seemed to him a thing to be ashamed of, now that, in love's light,
he saw his own career with new eyes. He pitied Denzil, in an impersonal
kind of way, for having such an unsatisfactory brother. No wonder they
never spoke of him—the scapegrace for whom the old honorable family
must blush when his name was mentioned.

And then came an idea which caused him to smile to himself. What
would Denzil say, did he know that he was befriending that same
scapegrace brother's future wife? He had no scruple in the feeling that
money was being expended for such a purpose. But it reminded him of
another matter.

"Listen, Rona," he said. "I shall send you money whenever I can. At
first it will not be much. But as soon as I am in regular work, I should like
to send you enough to buy your own clothes, and so on—so that you should
not be beholden to these good people for absolutely everything. I have
brought you half a sovereign to-day, just for pocket-money, and I shall send
more at the first opportunity. That will make me feel as if you were real—as
if, one day, you really would belong to me."

As he spoke, the church clock chimed a quarter to eight. In ten minutes,

folks would be coming out of church. Their enchanted interview was almost
over.

He looked at her with a kind of despair. "Rona, I must go! I never

thought that it could be as terrible as this to say good-by!"

She looked at him helplessly, her eyes swimming in tears.

—"And I have nothing to give you—nothing to offer but my wretched

self——"

He dived into his pocket, brought out a sixpence, and with a pair of
pocket-pliers, divided it neatly in two pieces. Then, with a piercer in his
pocket-knife, he drilled a tiny hole in each half, and made her promise that
she would suspend the charm about her own neck, as he would about his—
as the only tangible sign of their plighted vows.

There was but a moment, after this ceremony, to be spent in leave-

taking. Felix, to his own utter astonishment, broke down completely.

"You'll be true to me, Rona—you won't fail me?" he gasped, half-

blinded by the choking tears; and Rona, with those tears wet upon her
cheek, promised, knowing no more than a kitten what she was promising,
nor why.

For one instant their lips were together, the young man trembling,
ashamed of his weakness, his hot heart filled with a surge of emotion so
unexpected as to be to him alarming; and then he was running from her, not
daring to look back, stumbling away in the evening dusk with a heart more
joyful, but with pangs more dire than he had imagined possible.

And now the future lay before him, like the battle-field upon which to-
morrow's conflict should take place. To the old Felix he had bidden
farewell. He had now no mind to regenerate society, only to make one
woman happy. Rona, who knew the worst of him—Rona, who had come to
him at the moment when he touched bottom—Rona loved him.

Then to conquer the world was a mere detail. It could be done, and he,
Felix, was the man to do it.

* * * * * *
*

In the course of the ensuing day, Miss Rawson received the following
letter.

It was typewritten, and dated from a London hotel.

"Miss Rawson (Private).

"DEAR MADAM,—I must begin this letter with some attempt to

express my deep sense of the great kindness you have shown to my young
sister. I scarcely know how to write. Words mean so little. But as I have
nothing else, I must, all the same, make use of them to tell you of my
undying gratitude to you and Mr. Vanston for a help so prompt and so
effectual as that you have already bestowed. But, madam, not only am I
your debtor for all these favors—you actually speak of interesting yourself
further in my sister's case—upon conditions.

"I cannot tell you how much it would mean to me to know that she was
safe, and in trustworthy hands, during the next year or two. I have thrown
up my old work, and, for reasons I shall explain, I cannot return to it. I have
now the offer of work which will, I trust, turn out well for me, but of such a
character—involving residence abroad and much movement from place to
place—as would make it very difficult at first to have my sister with me.

"But now, madam, we come to the crucial point. You most naturally
stipulate that the kind offer you make is contingent upon my frankness.
Before we go further, let me avow, without disguise, that I dare not be
perfectly frank with you. The reason for this is that we are fugitives. We
have an uncle, who was in charge of my sister, and from whose wicked
hands she was escaping when she met with her accident. Should he find out
where she now is, he would no doubt try to repossess himself of her.

"We are orphans; and in justice to your kindness, and relying on your
secrecy, I will own to you that our name is not Smith in reality, but Leigh.
My uncle made an unjustifiable attempt to compel my sister to adopt as her
profession the music-hall stage—to which she was strongly averse. He paid
a premium for her complete training to a man who was neither more nor
less than an unprincipled scoundrel. On my sister's declining to submit to
his treatment, he tried to starve her into submission by locking her up and
leaving her without food. In rescuing her from this terrible position—only
just in time—I was so unfortunate as to allow her to fall from a
considerable height, with the result that, as you know, she was seriously
hurt.

"We made our escape, penniless and without resources, in the canal
barge.

"You will see that I am being frank with you as regards the
circumstances. I refrain only from the mention of names and places. I am
fully aware that, by so doing, I put it out of your power to verify any part of
my story. But what can I do? My uncle is furious at having paid down a
large sum for my sister's training, only to lose her. He will leave no stone
unturned to recapture her. He has set detectives upon our track, though he
has not allowed the newspapers to make our flight known. I cannot even
give you the address of the school at which my sister was educated, as this
is the first place in which my uncle would make inquiries; and the lady-
principal might think it her duty to answer them, should you let her know
where we are.

"My uncle is my sister's legal guardian until she comes of age. Any
court of law would, on his application, restore her to his care, unless we
could adduce satisfactory proof of his brutality, which would be very
difficult.

"I hope you will see that there are strong reasons for my reticence.
Nevertheless, on reading this over, I feel that it is very likely that you may,
even if you believe what I say, wish to disembarrass yourself of a charge
who might quite possibly prove a difficulty should her guardian discover
her place of refuge.

"But I am perfectly determined that, whatever happens, she shall not go

back to a life she justly loathes—a life in which she would be ruined, body
and soul. Should you decide not to keep her, I will fetch her away, take her
abroad with me, and manage as best I can for her.

"I will add no more to a letter already long enough to need apology.
Accept, then, madam, my profound thanks, and my assurance that, however
you decide, I consider myself deeply your debtor. If you feel that you do not
care to accept further responsibility in the matter, please let me know at
once, as I must then make arrangements to fetch my sister.—I am, madam,
your grateful and obliged servant,

"DAVID SMITH.

"P.S.—With the exception of the uncle in question, we have no

relations."
 CHAPTER XIII

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

But on a day whereof I think
One shall dip his hand to drink
In that still water of thy soul,
And its imaged tremors race
Over thy joy-troubled face...
From the hovering wing of Love
The warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek.
—FRANCIS THOMPSON.

Summer sunshine lay broad and calm upon the lawns at Normansgrave.

Over all brooded that peace and well-being, that calm which is like the
hum of well-oiled machinery, or the sleeping of a top which, nevertheless,
spins on in the apparent repose. It is pre-eminently a characteristic of
English country life, this regulated prosperity, the result of long centuries of
experiment, issuing in perfect achievement.

In England we have thoroughly acquired the art of domestic comfort.

And we have the means to carry our knowledge into effect.

All other nations feel it. There is hardly a civilized person in the world
who would not own that in England we have solved the riddle of making
ourselves perfectly comfortable.

Aunt Bee's competent hands still ruled over Normansgrave. During the
two years which had elapsed since the disappearance of his brother Felix,
the Squire had not married, neither was he engaged to be married.

During the first months following the bereavement, with its curious and
mysterious surrounding circumstances, it had been natural that Denzil
should withdraw himself somewhat from society. But as weeks rolled by,
and the police found no clew, there was nothing for it but to acquiesce in
the uncertainty, and to assume either that Felix was dead, or that he wished
to be thought so.

The newspapers had, of course, made the most of the mystery. They had
flung it forth in flaming headlines, they had printed the letters written by the
suicide, they had striven to whip up flagging interest by suggesting clews
which the police had not really found. One enterprising journal actually had
a competition, "Where is Felix Vanston?"

All kinds of letters and answers were sent in, and the Editor promised a
prize, when the truth should at last be brought to light, to the competitor
who had guessed nearest to the truth.

In the December of that year, when the trees lost their leaves, and a
man's decomposed corpse was found in a thicket in one of the London
parks, the whole hateful discussion leapt from its ashes and revived in full
force. Was it, or was it not, Felix Vanston?

The police thought that it was. No identification was possible, the thing
had had too many months in which to decompose. But in what had been a
pocket was a newspaper; and this, being folded very small, the date was
legible on one of the innermost pages: and it was the date of the
disappearance from the Deptford lodging.

Denzil and Miss Rawson, in the absence of more cogent proof than this,
declined to accept the remains as being those of the missing youth.

The Editor of the paper who had started the competition, however,
awarded the prize to the candidate who had foreshadowed such a discovery.

And thereafter, silence fell upon the Press, and the Case of the
Disappearance of Felix Vanston was over.

The world slipped back by degrees into its groove, and after a while
Denzil grew less shy of going to London hotels, and began to lead his usual
life, without the dread of being interviewed. But time flowed on, and he
was still a bachelor, having apparently acquired a habit in that direction—or
—as his aunt in her heart believed—because he was waiting.

If that were so, the period of his waiting was at an end. Two days ago,
Rona Smith, the girl for whom his benevolence had done so much, had
returned from her two years abroad.

She was coming slowly along the graveled terrace, a book in her hand, a
rose-colored sunshade over her head tinging her white gown with reflected
color. Miss Rawson, seated by the tea-table under the big beech, watched
her approach with eyes full of interest, wonder, and amusement.

Denzil, who had been yachting with a friend, was expected home that
afternoon; and his aunt was more than curious to see the meeting.

The letter which the soi-disant David Smith had written with so much
anxiety and care and hesitation—the letter upon which Rona's future had
hung—had been the cause of much doubt and deliberation between Miss
Rawson and her nephew. Aunt Bee was inclined to advise that they should
hold out—should stipulate for frankness under seal of secrecy. She believed
that, had they done so, the young man would have made a clean breast of
the whole affair. And she was probably right. Felix would, most likely, have
acknowledged his true name, and relinquished all hope of calling Rona his,
sooner than do her the injustice of dragging her about Europe in company
of two men, neither of whom was related to her, when but for his
selfishness she might be living the sheltered life of the English upper
classes. He could have been forced into avowal. But they did not force him.
Denzil, with that curious streak of romance which lurks in most
Englishmen, was, perhaps, rather pleased that there should be a mystery
about Rona. The notion that she was to be protected against secret enemies
appealed to a mild vein of plotting which existed in him. He undertook the
risks so vaguely hinted at by Felix, not merely readily, but with eagerness.

The smuggling of Miss Smith out of England was the first thing which
helped to turn his mind off the distressing case of his brother.

Miss Rawson and he took the girl abroad. They traveled here and there,
from one place to another in Germany, visiting the educational centers,
seeking a place where they could with confidence leave their charge.

They found, at last, in a pretty south German town, an English lady,

widow of a German officer, who took a few girls to board, and gave them a
sound education, having masters for music and drawing. Here Rona, whose
health was completely re-established, was left; and from that day to this she
and Denzil had not met.

The girl developed a great ambition to learn. She was happy and content
with Frau Wilders, and willingly remained there during the Christmas
holidays. The following summer Miss Rawson journeyed out to see her, and
found her thoroughly proficient in German, and most anxious to be allowed
to pass her second year in France. This was satisfactorily arranged. Aunt
Bee traveled with her to Rennes, where Frau Wilders knew a lady in the
same line as herself. Rona lived with this lady and attended the public day-
school in the university town.

And now she was educated. Moreover, she was a woman grown. And
Miss Rawson had brought her home from France, wondering not a little as
to what the outcome of the situation was to be.

During all these two years there had been, so far as she was aware, no
attempt to gain possession of the girl, certainly no annoyance of her, on the
part of the uncle who was supposed to be so malign a being.

Had it not been for the girl's own personality, Miss Rawson, who was a
sensible, unimaginative woman, would have been inclined to think that the
tale of persecution was the invention of the brother, as a way of extricating
his sister and himself from destitution. But, in some manner wholly
indescribable, Rona refuted this theory, simply by being Rona.

Miss Rawson, who had been her companion for four or five weeks each
summer, had seen a good deal of her, and was not an easy person to
deceive. She knew well enough that the girl believed herself to have cause
to dread something, or someone. Under the keen scrutiny of Miss Rawson's
criticism, there had never appeared one trait, one phrase, which was out of
harmony with Rona's claim to gentle birth and breeding. Her tastes were
innately fastidious. In all the small minutiæ of a refined girl's habits, she
was above reproach. Her convent breeding had given her an atmosphere of
purity and simplicity, upon which the modern culture of her later education
sat with a curious charm. But there was more than this underlying the
fascination which the elder woman felt but could not classify. She was only
conscious of thinking that Rona was the most attractive maiden she had
ever seen. There was not a girl of their acquaintance who could hold a
candle to her. She was more than pretty, she was truly beautiful, with a
somewhat grave beauty, as of one over whom hung some menace or
anxiety.

But at the nature of this anxiety Miss Rawson could make no guess.

Rona had left the gravel now, and her feet trod the shorn turf, her white
gown slipping over its verdure like lake-foam over water-weed. She had
dignity, she had poise, those things now most rare in the modern girl, who is
generally ill-assured, in spite of her free-and-easy pose. But under the fine
calm of her manner there was a shadow.

Rona carried a secret in her heart. This secret, at first half-delightful,

had gradually grown to be a distress, a burden—at last an out-and-out
nightmare. Within a few days of her parting from Felix in the summer-
house she was feeling strongly the discomfort of the situation in which he
had placed her.

She was secretly betrothed to the young man who posed as her brother!

She saw plainly that David must naturally be unwilling that his own
prison record should be known. But why should he insist upon her adhering
to the brother-and-sister fiction? She thought the deceit unnecessary and
unwise, since when he returned to claim her promise, their true relations
must be avowed, and she would stand convicted of a long course of
deception and untruth.

For the first week or so after her promise, so readily, so ignorantly

given, she had suffered horribly. And the climax of her revolt came when
she received, from Hamburg, his first wild love-letter.
 Poor Felix! He let himself go, in that letter, as only a young man in his
first love can fling himself prone upon the love he imagines in the beloved
one.

There was, in the girl, no passion to kindle at the breath of his: the
unveiled vehement thing almost paralyzed her with apprehension.

In her first panic fear she wrote and bade him never so to address her
again. Did he not realize that her letters might be overlooked? Miss Rawson
might reasonably, naturally expect to be shown her letters from her brother.
They must be such as she could produce if necessary—the kind of letter a
brother might write to a sister.

Felix never admitted, even to himself, how cruelly this reproof flung
him back upon himself. Her appeal touched his tenderest feeling, and
overwhelmed him with self-reproach. He answered meekly, abjectly,
imploring forgiveness for his rashness, vowing never so to offend again;
and inclosing more money than he could conveniently spare that she might
have all she needed.

Veronica graciously accepted both the apology and the remittance.

She was not at that time old enough to see how the mere acceptance of
his money bound her to him. But it was not long before this dawned upon
her—this, and many other things.

She was a girl of fine intelligence, and she took full advantage of all the
culture put within her reach. Her mind developed apace. She read books,
she saw plays. The world as it is began to emerge before her vision,
heretofore bounded by convent walls; and soon she saw clearly that a girl
under seventeen has no right to promise herself in marriage. She knew that
she had given a promise that meant nothing. She formed, in her secret heart,
an Ideal of marriage, which was not in the least like the gaunt young man,
with the hunted eyes, who had implored her to be true to him. Looking back
upon the little scene in the arbor she could not but think that he had taken
an unfair advantage of her gratitude and friendlessness. By the end of her
first vacation the thought of her secret engagement was a millstone round
her neck.
 She still kept to her habit of writing to him. He stood for something in
her life, after all. He was sympathy, kindness, a creature to whom she could
turn for fellow-feeling in joy or trouble. He was as interested as she in her
powers of mind, in her improvement in languages, her music, and her
reading. He wrote more and more hopefully of his own prospects. Always
he kept to her commands, and his letters might have been shown to
anybody. Yet sometimes there breathed through them a current of feeling
which sent a chill foreboding through her. What was she to say when at last
he came to claim her promise—she who knew she had nothing to give?

Her obligation to him weighed upon her far more heavily than her debt
to Mr. Vanston. She became deeply, feverishly anxious to earn her own
living. She had a record of every remittance that David had ever sent, that
one day she might repay him.

Her own complete change of mind encouraged her to hope at times that
he might have changed his. It seemed impossible that he, a grown man, in a
world full of women, could remain faithful to the memory of a girl whom
he had only seen two or three times—a girl of whom he knew so little.

What if his heart were as empty towards her as hers towards him? What
if he still wrote, still paid, only from a sense of duty, and because he had
given his word?

One day it was borne in upon her to try in a letter to ascertain his real
feeling; and she wrote to him, about six months before her final return to
England, after this fashion:

"We write to one another, you and I, of what we do, but not of what we
think. Yet, since we last met, we must have changed, both of us. At least, I
have changed, and it seems foolish to believe that you alone, of all men,
have stood still in a world full of movement, of interest, of men, and of
women too.

"I wonder—I often wonder—and at last my curiosity is so great that I

feel I must let it out—what you seriously think, now, of the little comedy of
our betrothal in the garden that Sunday evening?

"I wonder if you have realized how rash we were to promise any
lifelong bond—we who knew nothing of either life or bonds: we who knew
nothing of each other, of our respective characters and tastes?

"It seems to me impossible that you should not have traveled as far
since then, in mind, as you have done in body. And I want to tell you this. If
you have come to the conclusion—as it is borne in upon me that you must
have—that we were a couple of silly, unreflecting things; please be sure that
I, too, am growing up, that I, too, shall soon be able to work for myself, and
to repay your goodness to me financially, if not in other ways; and finally,
that I, too, see how unreasonable it would be for one of us to hold the other
to such a compact in the future."

After the dispatch of this letter, she had awaited a reply in some
trepidation.

It did not arrive for some weeks, since Felix and Vronsky, out in Siberia,
were much occupied with certain happenings hereafter to be recorded fully.
When at last a letter was received, it was inconclusive. Felix wrote that he
hoped, before the end of the year, to get leave to come and see her. Until
then he thought it best not to discuss the nature of their feelings for each
other. For himself, if he wrote of what he did, and not of what he thought,
that, as she must know, was out of deference to her commands. What he
desired was, as always, her happiness. Just now he was not in a position to
write more definitely, but as soon as his plans cleared, she should hear from
him again.

That letter had reached Rona towards the end of February. She had not
heard since, and it was now July. A remittance had arrived, however,
regularly each month as usual.

The ceasing of letters from David had not troubled her much. Its effect
had been to relegate the whole affair more and more to the background of
her young eager mind, full of plans for the future and not eager to busy
itself with the past.

Such was the Veronica now moving over the grass towards Aunt Bee.

"Come, child, tea will be cold," said Miss Rawson.

"Nothing could be cold to-day," laughed back Rona, raising her eyes
from her book, but quickening her steps obediently.

The stable clock chimed a quarter past four.

"Denzil ought to be here soon if he comes by that train," said Aunt Bee.

"I am impatient to see him again," said Rona, in tones of candid interest.
"I owe him so much, I feel inclined to act like a young person in a novel of
a century ago, and fall on my knees, seizing and kissing my benefactor's
hand! Wouldn't he be astounded!"

"Indeed he would! Denzil never gave way to an impulse in his life."

"No. I remember well how dignified and proper he always was. But
think how good he has been to me!" She sat down in a low chair and took
her tea from Miss Rawson's hands.

As David had been so careful to keep her in funds, her dress had always
been her own affair. And she had a style of her own.

It was daring to wear a rose-lined hat with the warm chestnut of her
abundant locks; but she achieved it.

Aunt Bee caught herself thinking that, if Denzil really wanted her, he
had better make up his mind at once. Nameless and dowerless though she
was, the Girl from Nowhere was not likely to go long a-begging.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, the puffing of the arriving motor
could be heard upon the still air.
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