ame when he ventured up the walk.

Doris was in the window and saw him coming. She slipped softly out and
intercepted him before he had stepped upon the porch. She had caught up
her hat as she passed through the hall, and was fitting it to her head
as he looked up and saw her.

"Miss Scott?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Challoner."

"You know me?" he went on, one foot on the step and one still on the
walk.

Before replying she closed the door behind her. Then as she noted his
surprise she carefully explained:

"Mr. Brotherson, our boarder, is just recovering from typhoid. He is
still weak and acutely susceptible to the least noise. I was afraid that
our voices might disturb him. Do you mind walking a little way up the
road? That is, if your visit was intended for me."

Her flush, the beauty which must have struck even him, but more than all
else her youth, seemed to reconcile him to this unconventional request.
Bowing, he took his foot from the step, saying, as she joined him:

"Yes, you are the one I wanted to see; that is, to-day. Later, I hope to
have the privilege of a conversation with Mr. Brotherson."

She gave him one quick look, trembling so that he offered her his arm
with a fatherly air.

"I see that you understand my errand here," he proceeded, with a grave
smile, meant as she knew for her encouragement. "I am glad, because we
can go at once to the point. Miss Scott," he continued in a voice from
which he no longer strove to keep back the evidences of deep feeling,
"I have the strongest interest in your patient that one man can have in
another, where there is no personal acquaintanceship. You who have every
reason to understand my reasons for this, will accept the statement, I
hope, as frankly as it is made."

She nodded. Her eyes were full of tears, but she did not hesitate to
raise them. She had the greatest desire to see the face of the man
who could speak like this to-day, and yet of whose pride and sense of
superiority his daughter had stood in such awe, that she had laid a seal
upon the impulses of her heart, and imposed such tasks and weary waiting
upon her lover. Doris forgot, in meeting his softened glance and tender,
almost wistful, expression, the changes which can be made by a great
grief, and only wondered why her sweet benefactress had not taken him
into her confidence and thus, possibly, averted the doom which Doris
felt had in some way grown out of this secrecy.

"Why should she have fe