The immediate announcement that it was to be disputed gave Dora another chance, and once again postponed the assurance that he longed for with a fever which was his own condemnation of her, if he could have read that sign.

For months he had seen so little of her, had so altered his constant habit of going to the Milburns', that his family talked of it, wondering among themselves; and Stella indulged in hopeful speculations.

They did not wonder or speculate at the Milburns'.

It was an axiom there that it is well to do nothing rashly.
Lorne, in the office on Market Street, had been replying to Mr Fulke to the effect that the convention could hardly be much longer postponed, but that as yet he had no word of the date of it when the telephone bell rang and Mr Farquharson's voice at the other end asked him to come over to the committee room.

"They've decided about it now, I imagine," he told his senior, putting on his hat; and something of the wonted fighting elation came upon him as he went down the stairs.