to answer.

Five minutes, and she recovered sufficient reason to catch the
significance of Ellis' vehement gestures toward the second of the row
of four bedrooms that opened off the sala. Understanding, she left
Terry and followed Ellis into their room, closing the door with a bang
intended as a signal to another who listened.

Terry waited, idly stroking the long frond of an air plant that hung
in the wide window near where he stood. He wondered, vaguely, that he
should be so collected, almost unconcerned, in the face of what
awaited him. He saw the door open slowly, wider, then arrest as if the
hand on the knob had faltered, and in the instant his self-possession
deserted him.

His heart skipped a beat, then accelerated into a heavy thumping that
seemed to fill the room with pulsing muffled roar. He moistened his
lips as the door moved again, opened wide.

Deane stepped into the room, pale, her wide blue eyes fixed upon him.
Slender, rounded, white of arm and throat, she had fulfilled
gloriously all of the fair promise of her youth. The rich heritage of
womanhood had stamped the softly curved form and the sweetly pensive
face. Virginal, she was a mother of men.

He faced her from the window, powerless to move, to speak, but there
was that in his eyes that made words unnecessary. Scarce breathing,
atremble, she saw the steady gray eyes blaze with a light no other had
ever seen, ever would see.

To him she suddenly became unreal, and his mind reverted to another
hour when they had stood facing each other. Again she stood before
him in the dimlit hall, sobbing, and with the memory came a surging
realization of what he might have lost. Unconsciously his last words
to her, spoken that Christmas night, sprang brokenly to his lips as he
held out his arms:

"Don't wait, Deane-girl, don't wait."

With the sudden deepening of the wistful lines of his mouth she felt a
burning rush of tears, and at his words she crossed to him, starry
eyed, full red lips aquiver.

There never was a merrier party of four than theirs that night. The
questions flew back and forth, answers clipped short by new and more
pressing queries. Ellis and Susan were full of the newcomers' interest
in the country, its peoples and customs. Deane, quieter, was
interested most in Terry's work, in Davao, in the story of the Hills.
Terry learned of the home friends. Father Jennings, Doctor Mather, Mr.
Hunter, a score of others, had sent messages to him