ely, as he took his place
beside her, a sense of climax. This situation, like those of the past,
was not of his own making. It was here; confronting him, and a certain
inevitable intoxication at being once, more alone with her prevented
him from forming any policy with which to deal with it. He might either
trust himself, or else he might not. And as she said, the distance was
not great. But he could not help wondering, during those first moments
of silence, whether she comprehended the strength of the temptation to
which she subjected him....

The night was warm. She wore a coat, which was open, and from time to
time he caught the gleam of the moonlight on the knotted pearls at her
throat. Over her head she had flung, mantilla-like, a black lace scarf,
the effect of which was, in the soft luminosity encircling her, to add
to the quality of mystery never exhausted. If by acquiescing in his
company she had owned to a tie between them, the lace shawl falling
over the tails of her dark hair and framing in its folds her face, had
somehow made her once more a stranger. Nor was it until she presently
looked up into his face with a smile that this impression was, if not at
once wholly dissipated, at least contradicted.

Her question, indeed, was intimate.

"Why did you come with me?"

"Why?" he repeated, taken aback.

"Yes. I'm sure you have something you wish to do, something which
particularly worries you."

"No," he answered, appraising her intuition of him, "there is nothing
I can do, to-night. A young woman in whom Mr. Bentley is interested, in
whom I am interested, has disappeared. But we have taken all the steps
possible towards finding her."

"It was nothing--more serious, then? That, of course, is serious enough.
Nothing, I mean, directly affecting your prospects of remaining--where
you are?"

"No," he answered. He rejoiced fiercely that she should have asked him.
The question was not bold, but a natural resumption of the old footing
"Not that I mean to imply," he added, returning her smile, "that those
prospects' are in any way improved."

"Are they any worse?" she said.

"I see the bishop to-morrow. I have no idea what position he will
take. But even if he should decide not to recommend me for trial many
difficult problems still remain to be solved."

"I know. It's fine," she continued, after a moment, "the way you are
going ahead as if there were no question of your not remaining; and
getting all tho