us he would have spoken. She heard the two men
mount the stairs, Hine still protesting with the violence which had grown
on him of late; Garratt Skinner seeking apparently to calm him, and
apparently oblivious that every word he spoke inflamed Walter Hine the
more. She had a fear there would be blows--blows struck, of course, by
Hine. She knew the reason of the quarrel. Her father was depriving Hine
of his drug. They passed up-stairs, however, and on the landing above she
heard their doors close. Then coming back to the window she made a sign
to Chayne, slipped a cloak about her shoulders and stole quietly down the
dark stairs to the door. She unlocked the door gently and went out to her
lover. Upon the threshold she hesitated, chilled by a fear as to how he
would greet her. But he turned to her and in the moonlight she saw his
face and read it. There was no anger there. She ran toward him.

"Oh, my dear," she cried, in a low, trembling voice, and his arms
enclosed her. As she felt them hold her to him, and knew indeed that it
was he, her lover, whose lips bent down to hers, there broke from her a
long sigh of such relief and such great uplifting happiness as comes but
seldom, perhaps no more than once, in the life of any man or woman. Her
voice sank to a whisper, and yet was very clear and, to the man who heard
it, sweet as never music was.

"Oh, my dear, my dear! You have come then?" and she stroked his face, and
her hands clung about his neck to make very sure.

"Were you afraid that I wouldn't come, Sylvia?" he asked, with a low,
quiet laugh.

She lifted her face into the moonlight, so that he saw at once the tears
bright in her eyes and the smile trembling upon her lips.

"No," she said, "I rather thought that you would come," and she laughed
as she spoke. Or did she sob? He could hardly tell, so near she was to
both. "Oh, but I could not be sure! I wrote with so much unkindness," and
her eyes dropped from his in shame.

"Hush!" he said, and he held her close.

"Have you forgiven me? Oh, please forgive me!"

"Long since," said he.

But Sylvia was not reassured.

"Ah, but you won't forget," she said, ruefully. "One can forgive, but one
can't forget what one forgives," and then since, even in her remorse,
hope was uppermost with her that night, she cried, "Oh, Hilary, do you
think you ever will forget what I wrote to you?"

And again Chayne laughed quietly at her fears.

"What does it matter what you wr