Feasting upon her loveliness, with eyes hungry in their wistfulness, he was about to approach her when she suddenly looked toward him and their eyes met. He caught the quick flash of feeling; he knew that he was still beloved! But even as he drank in the delicious confirmation of his hopes, she passed him without recognition, and he knew that she would not break her vow--that she would not meet him till he had fulfilled her conditions. Too miserable to seek Miss Howard in the throng, the young physician pleaded an urgent call to a patient, and left his host almost before he had fairly entered upon the festivities.
One evening, soon after the last fearful disappointment, Dr. Gardner received a note asking him to come to a certain number on Fifth Avenue, and there he should meet Evelyn Howard. She inferred that he had had ample time to learn if he really desired to form her acquaintance, and she was ready now to see him.
Tearing the paper to atoms in sudden irritation and setting his teeth, the young physician was soon at the appointed place, an elegant brown-stone mansion, quite familiar to his eyes in his drives about the city.
He was not left long in suspense. There was a sound of rapid steps descending the stairs, with a frou-frou of silken skirts, and in a moment Lina Dent stood before him, her face aglow with a proud light he had never seen there, and her hands extended in glad welcome.
"You, Lina! You here? You have relented? This is too much happiness!"
Catching both soft white hands in his, he bent his lips to them, full of the rapture he could not speak. He forgot to wonder why she was there. He forgot everything but the love in her eyes and the joyous ring of her voice.
Ere they could be seated the door again opened and admitted an elderly lady, who approached smiling.
"My dear aunt!" exclaimed the young lover. "You, too? This _is_ a surprise! What does it all mean? How did you get here, and when?"
The ladies stood smiling at each other and gazing upon him with a significance that indeed clamored for explanation.
"Weldon, is it possible you do not guess?" asked his aunt.
"What? Why, what do you mean? I am all bewildered!" he exclaimed, looking from one to the other till a faint glimmer of the truth began to appear through the mists.