ndow came no response; the girl could
see the man's face only indistinctly in the dim, storm-washed light;
receding thunder growled now and again and the noise of the rain came
in soft, fierce waves; at times, lightning flashed a weird clearness
over the details of the room and left them vaguer.

"Why don't you say something?" the girl threw at him. "What do you
think? Say it."

"Are you going to tell me the rest?" the man asked quietly.

"The rest? Isn't that enough? What makes you think there's more?" she
gasped.

"I don't know what makes me. I do. Something in your manner, I
suppose. You mustn't tell me if you wish not, but I'd be able to help
you better if I knew everything. As long as you've told me so much."

There was a long stillness in the dim room; the dashing rain and the
muttering thunder were the only sounds in the world. The white dress
was motionless in the chair, vague, impersonal--he could see only the
blurred suggestion of a face above it; it got to be fantastic, a dream,
a condensation of the summer lightning and the storm-clouds;
unrealities seized the quick imagination of the man; into his fancy
came the low, buoyant voice out of key with the words.

"Yes, there's more. A love story, of course--there's always that.
Only this is more an un-love story, as far as I'm in it." She stopped
again. "I don't know why I should tell you this part."

"Don't, if you don't want to," the man answered promptly, a bit coldly.
He felt a clear distaste for this emotional business; he would much
prefer to "cut it out," as he would have expressed it to himself.

"I _do_ want to--now. I didn't mean to. But it's a relief." And it
came to him sharply that if he was to be a surgeon of souls, what
business had he to shrink from blood?

"I am here to relieve you if I can. It's what I most wish to do--for
any one," he said gently then. And the girl suddenly laughed again.

"For any one," she repeated. "I like it that way." Her eyes,
wandering a moment about the dim, bare office, rested on a calendar in
huge lettering hanging on the wall, rested on the figures of the date
of the day. "I want to be just a number, a date--August first--I'm
that, and that's all. I'll never see you again, I hope. But you are
good and I'll be grateful. Here's the way things are. Three years ago
I got engaged to a man. I suppose I thought I cared about him. I'm a
fool. I get--fads." A short, soft laugh cut the w