h an
involuntary motion, which was pure maidenliness.

"It's getting late," remarked Richard, trying to make his voice
careless, but it fell in spite of him into deep cadences.

"It ain't very late, I guess," Sylvia had returned, tremblingly.

"I ought to be going home."

Then there was silence for a while. Sylvia glanced sidewise, timidly
and adoringly, at Richard's smoothly shaven face, pale as marble in
the moonlight, and waited, her heart throbbing.

[Illustration: "Sylvia glanced timidly at Richard's smoothly-shaven
face"]

"I've been coming here a good many years," Richard observed finally,
and his own voice had a solemn tremor.

Sylvia made an almost inarticulate assent.

"I've been thinking lately," said Richard; then he paused. They could
hear the great clock out in the kitchen tick. Sylvia waited, her very
soul straining, although shrinking at the same time, to hear.

"I've been thinking lately," said Richard again, "that--maybe--it
would be wise for--us both to--make some different arrangement."

Sylvia bent her head low. Richard paused for the second time. "I have
always meant--" he began again, but just then the clock in the
kitchen struck the first stroke of ten. Richard caught his breath and
arose quickly. Never in his long courtship had he remained as late as
that at Sylvia Crane's. It was as if a life-long habit struck as well
as the clock, and decided his times for him.

"I must be going," said he, speaking against the bell notes. Sylvia
arose without a word of dissent, but Richard spoke as if she had
remonstrated.

"I'll come again next Sunday night," said he, apologetically.

Sylvia followed him to the door. They bade each other good-night
decorously, with never a parting kiss, as they had done for years.
Richard went out of sight down the white gleaming road, and she went
in and to bed, with her heart in a great tumult of expectation and
joyful fear.

She had tried to wait calmly for Sunday night. She had done her neat
household tasks as usual, her face and outward demeanor were sweetly
unruffled, but her thoughts seemed shivering with rainbows that
constantly dazzled her with sweet shocks when her eyes met them. Her
feet seemed constantly flying before her into the future, and she
could scarcely tell where she might really be, in the present or in
her dreams, which had suddenly grown so real.

On Sunday morning she had curled her soft fair hair, and arranged
with trepidation one