oman than she would be."

"I'm glad you agree with me," said Iris slowly. "Dr. Anstice, would you
think me very--impertinent--if I say I'm sorry you have
been--unhappy--too? I--somehow I always thought you"--she stopped,
flushed, but continued bravely--"you looked so sad sometimes I used to
wonder if you too had suffered, like poor Mrs. Carstairs."

For a moment Anstice's fingers faltered in their task, and the girl's
heart missed a beat as she wondered whether she had said too much.

Then:

"Miss Wayne"--Anstice's voice reassured her even while it filled her
with a kind of wondering foreboding--"I should never find any
impertinence in any interest _you_ might be kind enough to express. I
have suffered--bitterly--and the worst of my suffering lies in the fact
that others--one other at least besides myself--were involved in the ill
I unwittingly wrought."

Again her answer surprised him by the depth of comprehension it
conveyed.

"That, too, I can understand," said Iris gently. "I have often tried to
imagine how one must feel when one has unknowingly harmed another
person; and it has always seemed to me that one would feel as one does
when one has spoken unkindly, or impatiently, at least, to a child."

For a second Anstice busied himself in bandaging the slim wrist he held.
Then, without looking up, he said:

"You have thought more deeply than many girls of your age, Miss Wayne. I
wonder if you would extend your pity to me if you knew the nature of my
particular tragedy."

A sudden spatter of rain against the window-pane made them both look up
in surprise; and in a lighter tone Anstice said:

"A sharp shower, I see. I've finished my work, you'll be glad to hear,
but I think it will be wiser to wait here till the rain's over. Will
your cycle take any harm?"

"Oh, no, it can be dried at home," said Iris rather absently; and both
of them were too much preoccupied to expend any of their talked-of
sympathy on the overgrown youth patiently guarding the motor by the
roadside.

"Come and try an easier chair, won't you?" Anstice pushed forward a
capacious rocking-chair and Iris took it obediently, while Anstice
leaned against the table regarding her rather curiously.

"Miss Wayne." Suddenly he felt a quite overwhelming desire to admit this
girl into his jealously-guarded confidence. "From something you said
just now I gathered that you had been good enough to spare a thought for
me now and then. Does that mean t