CHAPTER XX.

The Professor shivered a little when Jeannette came to him with her budget of wonderful news. She told him of her engagement. He patted her head, and blessed her and wished her happiness. Then she told him of her visit to Vane's house. It was at that he shivered.

He wondered if Vane had taken her image from that fatal glass. If he had, how, he wondered, would this experiment end? Surely it could not have happened; Jeannette was quite herself; there was no visible diminution of charm, of vitality.

When Vane arrived, presently, the Professor questioned him. The answer brought the Professor wonder, but he did not count it altogether a calamity. There could be no doubt that Orson Vane was now wearing Jeannette's sweet and beautiful soul as a halo round his own. Well, mused Vanlief, if anything should happen to Jeannette one can always--

"Oh, father!"

Jeannette burst into the room with the morning paper from town. "Orson's house is burnt to the ground. And who do you think is suspected? Luke Moncreith! They found his body. Read it!"

The Professor took the report and scanned it. There could be no doubt; the mirror, the work of his life, was gone. He could never fashion one like it. Never--Yet--He looked at the two young people at the window, whither they had turned together, each with an arm about the other.

"What a marvel of a day!" Jeannette was saying.

"The days will all be marvels for us," said Orson.

"The days, I think, must have souls, just as we have. Some days seem to have such dark, such bitter thoughts.

"Yes, I think you are right. There are days that strike one as having souls; others that seem quite soulless. Beautiful, empty shells, some of them; others, dim, yet tender, full of graciousness."

"Orson!"

"Sweetheart!"

"Do you know how wonderfully you are changed? Do you know you once talked bitterly, as one who was full of disappointments and disenchantments?"

"You have set me, dear, in a garden of enchantment from which I mean never to escape. The garden is your heart."

Something glistened in the Professor's eyes as he listened. "God, in his infinite wisdom," he said, in a reverent whisper, "gave her so much of grace; she had enough for both!"