all, he loved her with his
whole soul; and the chance had come to tell her so. Even under the
distressing conditions of his suit, the effort had its charm.

Stephen schooled herself to her usual attitude with him; and that, too,
since the effort was based on truth came with a certain ease to her. At
the present time, in her present frame of mind, nothing in the wide world
could give her pleasure; the ease which came, if it did not change her
purpose, increased her power. Their usual salutation, begun when she was
a little baby, was 'Good morning, Stephen!' 'Good morning, Harold!' It
had become so much a custom that now it came mechanically on her part.
The tender reference to childhood's days, though it touched her companion
to the quick, did not appeal to her since she had no special thought of
it. Had such a thought come to her it might have softened her even to
tears, for Harold had been always deep in her heart. As might have been
expected from her character and condition of mind, she was the first to
begin:

'I suppose you want to see me about something special, Harold, you have
come so early.'

'Yes, Stephen. Very special!'

'Were you at the house?' she asked in a voice whose quietness might have
conveyed a warning. She was so suspicious now that she suspected even
Harold of--of what she did not know. He answered in all simplicity:

'No. I came straight here.'

'How did you know I should be here?' Her voice was now not only quiet
but sweet. Without thinking, Harold blundered on. His intention was so
single-minded, and his ignorance of woman so complete, that he did not
recognise even elementary truths:

'I knew you always came here long ago when you were a child when you were
in--' Here it suddenly flashed upon him that if he seemed to expect that
she was in trouble as he had purposed saying, he would give away his
knowledge of what had happened and so destroy the work to which he had
set himself. So he finished the sentence in a lame and impotent manner,
which, however, saved complete annihilation as it was verbally accurate:
'in short frocks.' Stephen needed to know little more. Her quick
intelligence grasped the fact that there was some purpose afoot which she
did not know or understand. She surmised, of course, that it was some
way in connection with her mad act, and she grew cooler in her brain as
well as colder in her heart as she prepared to learn more. Stephen had
changed from g