otested. "That can't possibly be true!"

He did not answer. He had plenty of arguments with which to establish the
parallel, his mind was aflame with phrases in which to plead his cause
with her. Somehow they wouldn't come to his tongue. It didn't occur to
him that fatigue had anything to do with this. He was filled with a
sudden fury that he could not talk to her.

She had turned away, restlessly, and moved to one of the dormer windows.
Following her with his eyes he saw the dawn coming.

He rose stiffly from his chair. "I guess I had better take you home
now," he said.

She nodded and got her hat. When he found her at the door after he had
put out the lamp she clung to him for a moment in the dark and he thought
she meant to speak, but she did not.

He helped her down the irregular shaky stair and then, along the gray
cool empty street he walked with her toward the brightened sky.

She said, at last, "Graham wouldn't let me tell him what the real me was
like. Tell me the truth about the real you."

"There isn't much to tell. I guess I'm pretty much like any one else when
it comes down to--to ... I don't want to go on, alone. I want to be
woven in with you. I want..."

He stood still in a vain effort to make the words come. "I can't talk!"
he cried, and his voice broke in a sob.

"You needn't," she said; and pressing his hand against her breast she led
him on again. She was trembling and her hand was cold.

Nothing more was said between them, all the way. But when they reached
her door and managed to open it she stood for a moment peering through
the dusk into his face.

"If it's true..." she said. "If you really want a home and a wife--like
me... Oh, yes, I know it's true!"

CHAPTER XXVI

JOHN ARRIVES

Two or three hours after March and Mary came to the Dearborn Avenue house
that Sunday morning, a little before eight o'clock to be precise, John
Wollaston, deterred by humane considerations from ringing the door-bell,
tried his latch-key first and found it sufficient. Rather surprisingly
since his sister was particular about bolts and chains. But this mild
sensation was engulfed the next moment in clear astonishment when he
encountered in the drawing-room doorway, Anthony March.

The piano tuner was coatless and in his socks. Evidently it was no less
recent an event than the sound of the latchkey which had roused him
from sleep.

"Oh," he said. "It's you, sir." And added as he came a little w