He could not believe that she had accepted the man! He could never have so grossly misunderstood her, her nature, her ideas, everything about her! And yet who knew what he would or would not believe?
In some ways, as she had already discovered, Mr.
Monk was curiously simple.

How could she tell him the truth without using words which she did not desire to speak?
Here instinct came to her aid.

It might be done by making herself as agreeable to him as possible, for surely he must know that no girl would do her best to please one man when she had just promised herself to another.

So it came about that quite innocently Stella determined to allay her host's misgivings by this doubtful and dangerous expedient.
To begin with, she put on her best dress--a low bodice of black silk relieved with white and a single scarlet rose from the hothouse.

Round her neck also, fastened by a thin chain, she wore a large blood-red carbuncle shaped like a heart, and about her slender waist a quaint girdle of ancient Danish silver, two of the ornaments which she had saved from the shipwreck.