uld not be sure.

"You live in a plain little house, with just a few of the things you
used to have about you; rows of books, a picture or two, and some old
china. Things may be a bit shabby, but everything is beautifully neat,
and there are garden flowers on the table, perhaps white lilacs!"

"Oh, what a romanticist!" she said, through her soft laughter. "One
would think you wrote novels instead of specifications for concrete
walls. What if you come and find me living with my older sister, who
sews for a living, plain sewing, at a dollar a day? And we have a long
credit account at the grocery, which we can't pay? And at night our
little upstairs room is full of neighbours, untidy, loud-talking,
commonplace women? And the lamp smokes--"

"It wouldn't smoke; you would have trimmed it," he answered, quickly and
with conviction. "But, even if it were all like that, you would still be
the perfect thing you are. And I would take you away--"

"If you don't drive on, Mr. King," she interposed gently, "you will soon
be mentally unfit to drive at all. And I must be back before the
darkness has quite fallen. And--don't you think we have talked enough
about ourselves?"

"I like that word," he declared as he obediently set the car in motion.
"Ourselves--that sounds good to me. As long as you keep me with you that
way I'll try to be satisfied. One thing I'm sure of: I've something to
work for now that I didn't have this morning. Oh, I know; you haven't
given me a thing. But you're going to let me come to see you next
spring, and that's worth everything to me. Meanwhile, I'll do my level
best--for you."

* * * * *

When he drew up before the door of the church, where, in spite of his
entreaties that he be allowed to take her to her lodging place, Anne
insisted on being left, he felt, in spite of all he had gained that day,
a sinking of the heart. Though the hour was early and the neighbourhood
at this time of day a quiet one, and though she assured him that she had
not far to go, he was unhappy to leave her thus unaccompanied.

"I wish I could possibly imagine why it must be this way," he said to
himself as he stood hat in hand beside his car, watching Anne Linton's
quickly departing figure grow more and more shadowy as the twilight
enveloped it. "Well, one thing is certain: whatever she does there's a
good and sufficient reason; and I trust her."

CHAPTER XIII

RED HEADED AGAIN

C