ad and laid the pile by on the table
behind her. She sat for a long while, elbows on the arms of her chair,
fingers laced beneath her chin. She seemed to be looking at the fire, but
she was watching Dickie through her eyelashes. There was no ease in his
attitude. He had his arms folded, his hands gripped the damp sleeves of
his coat. When she spoke, he jumped as though she had fired a gun.

"It is not true, Dickie, that things were--were that way between Cosme
and me ... We had not settled to be married ..." She paused and saw that
he forced himself to sit quiet. "Do you really think," she said, "that
the man that wrote those letters, loves me?" Dickie was silent. He would
not meet her look. "So you promised Hilliard that you would take me back
to marry him?" There was an edge to her voice.

Dickie's face burned cruelly. "No," he said with shortness. "I was going
to take you to the train and then come back here. I am going to take up
this claim of Hilliard's--he's through with it. He likes the East. You
see, Sheila, he's got the whole world to play with. It's quite true." He
said this gravely, insistently. "He can give you everything--"

"And you?"

Dickie stared at her with parted lips. He seemed afraid to breathe lest
he startle away some hesitant hope. "I?" he whispered.

"I mean--_you_ don't like the East?--You will give up your work?"

"Oh--" He dropped back. The hope had flown and he was able to breathe
again, though breathing seemed to hurt. "Yes, ma'am. I'll give up
newspaper reporting. I don't like New York."

"But, Dickie--your--words? I'd like to see something you've written."

Dickie's hand went to an inner pocket.

"I wanted you to see this, Sheila," His eyes were lowered to hide a
flaming pride. "My _poems_."

Sheila felt a shock of dread. Dickie's _poems_! She was afraid to read
them. She could not help but think of his life at Millings, of that
sordid hotel lobby ... Newspaper stories--yes--that was imaginable.
But--poetry? Sheila had been brought up on verse. There was hardly a
beautiful line that had not sung itself into the fabric of her brain.

"Poems?" she repeated, just a trifle blankly; then, seeing the hurt in
his face, about the sensitive and delicate lips, she put out a quick,
penitent hand. "Let me see them--at once!"

He handed a few folded papers to her. They were damp. He put his face
down to his hands and looked at the floor as though he could not bear to
watch her face. Sheil