t
seeing her again. Alma coldly asked him in. Her face was still as pale
as when she came downstairs, but a curious little spot of fiery red
blossomed out where Gilbert's lips had touched it.

Gilbert followed her into the sitting-room and looked about eagerly.

"When did you come home?" she said slowly. "I did not know you were
expected."

"Got homesick, and just came! I wanted to surprise you all," he
answered, laughing. "I arrived only a few minutes ago. Just took time
to hug my mother, and here I am. Where's Anna?"

The pent-up retribution of two years descended on Alma's head in the
last question of Gilbert's. But she did not flinch. She stood straight
before him, tall and fair and pale, with the red maple light streaming
in through the open door behind her, staining her light house-dress
and mellowing the golden sheen of her hair. Gilbert reflected that
Alma Williams was really a very handsome girl. These two years had
improved her. What splendid big grey eyes she had! He had always
wished that Anna's eyes had not been quite so black.

"Anna is not here," said Alma. "She is married."

"Married!"

Gilbert sat down suddenly on a chair and looked at Alma in
bewilderment.

"She has been married for a year," said Alma steadily. "She married
Charlie Moore of East Exeter, and has been living there ever since."

"Then," said Gilbert, laying hold of the one solid fact that loomed
out of the mist of his confused understanding, "why did she keep on
writing letters to me after she was married?"

"She never wrote to you at all. It was I that wrote the letters."

Gilbert looked at Alma doubtfully. Was she crazy? There was something
odd about her, now that he noticed, as she stood rigidly there, with
that queer red spot on her face, a strange fire in her eyes, and that
weird reflection from the maple enveloping her like an immaterial
flame.

"I don't understand," he said helplessly.

Still standing there, Alma told the whole story, giving full
explanations, but no excuses. She told it clearly and simply, for she
had often pictured this scene to herself and thought out what she must
say. Her memory worked automatically, and her tongue obeyed it
promptly. To herself she seemed like a machine, talking mechanically,
while her soul stood on one side and listened.

When she had finished there was a silence lasting perhaps ten seconds.
To Alma it seemed like hours. Would Gilbert overwhelm her with angry
reproaches, o