is feet. With his
hat he held a letter. Allan went forward to meet him. Nancy stood up to
study the lines of an etching on the wall.

"I've come to say good-bye, you know." She heard the miserable
embarrassment of his tones, and knew, though she did not glance at him,
that there was a shameful droop to his whole figure.

Allan shook hands with him, first taking the letter he held.

"Good-bye--old chap--God bless you!"

He muttered, with that wretched consciousness of guilt, something about
being sorry to go.

"And I don't want to preach, old chap," continued Allan, giving the hand
a farewell grip, "but remember there are always two pairs of arms that
will never be shut to you, the arms of the Church of Him who died to
save us,--and my own poor arms, hardly less loving."

"Thank you, old boy--I'll go back to Hoover"--he looked hesitatingly at
the profile of Nancy--"Hoover thinks it's all rather droll, you
know--Good-bye, old boy! Good-bye, Nancy."

"My dear, Bernal is saying good-bye."

She turned and said "good-bye." He stepped toward her--seeming to her to
slink as he walked--but he held out his hand and she gave him her own,
cold, and unyielding. He went out, with a last awkward "Good-bye, old
chap!" to Allan.

Nancy turned to face her husband, putting out her hands to him. He had
removed from its envelope the letter Bernal had left him, and seemed
about to put it rather hastily into his pocket, but she seized it
playfully, not noting that his hand gave it up with a certain
reluctance, her eyes upon his face.

"No more business to-night--we have to talk. Oh, I must tell you so much
that has troubled me and made me doubt, my dear--and my poor mind has
been up and down like a see-saw. I wonder it's not a wreck. Come, put
away your business--there." She placed the letter and its envelope on
the desk.

"Now sit here while I tell you things."

An hour they were there, lingering in talk--talking in a circle; for at
regular intervals Nancy must return to this: "I believe no wife ever
goes away until there is absolutely no shred of possibility left--no
last bit of realness to hold her. But now I know your stanchness."

"Really, Nance--I can't tell you how much you please me."

There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other bewildered.

"The telephone, sir," said the maid in response to Allan's tardy "Come
in."

When he had gone, whistling cheerily, she walked nervously about the
room, studying f