Excerpt: ...on as directed. It seemed as if he must have put in the horse himself, so quickly did he reappear with the phaeton on the open road. Margery silently took her seat, and the Baron seemed cut to the quick with self-reproach as he noticed the listless indifference with which she acted. There was no doubt that in her heart she had preferred obeying the apparently important mandate that morning to becoming Jim's wife; but there was no less doubt that had the Baron left her alone she would quietly have gone to the altar. He drove along furiously, in a cloud of dust. There was much to contemplate in that peaceful Sunday morning-the windless trees and fields, the shaking sunlight, the pause in human stir. Yet neither of them heeded, and thus they drew near to the dairy. His first expressed intention had been to go indoors with her, but this he abandoned as impolitic in the highest degree. 'You may be soon enough, ' he said, springing down, and helping her to follow. 'Tell the truth: say you were sent for to receive a wedding present-that it was a mistake on my part-a mistake on yours; and I think they'll forgive . . . And, Margery, my last request to you is this: that if I send for you again, you do not come. Promise solemnly, my dear girl, that any such request shall be unheeded.' Her lips moved, but the promise was not articulated. 'O, sir, I cannot promise it ' she said at last. 'But you must; your salvation may depend on it ' he insisted almost sternly. 'You don't know what I am.' 'Then, sir, I promise, ' she replied. 'Now leave me to myself, please, and I'll go indoors and manage matters.' He turned the horse and drove away, but only for a little distance. Out of sight he pulled rein suddenly. 'Only to go back and propose it to her, and she'd come ' he murmured. He stood up in the phaeton, and by this means he could see over the hedge. Margery still sat listlessly in the same place; there was not a lovelier flower in the field. 'No, ' he said; 'no, ...