u understand?" he asked gently.

"No," she answered frankly.

"Then--then perhaps we had better go in," he said, fearing for himself.

He led the way through the swinging windows and closed them behind him.
In the light he saw that she was shivering.

"I 'm afraid I kept you out there too long," he said anxiously. He
reached her shawl and placed it about her shoulders. His throat ached.

"I haven't hurt you?"

"I think you have hurt yourself, somehow."

She raised her head a little.

Marie was calling.

"Good night," he said quickly.

"Good night."

CHAPTER XX

_A Long Night_

Donaldson retired to his room, and without undressing threw up his
window and stared at the hedge and the dark that lay beyond. Then he
tried to work out some solution to the problem which confronted him.
There was no use for him to try to blind himself to the fact that he
loved this girl--that was but to shirk the question. She stood out as
the supreme passion of his life and forced upon him a future that had a
meaning beyond anything of which he had ever dreamed. She quickened in
him new hopes, new aspirations, new ambitions. She made him see the
triviality of all that he had most hoped to enjoy during this week; she
opened his eyes to all that he had tried to make Arsdale see. With her
by his side every day would be like that first afternoon; every hour
thrilling with opportunities. The barren future which he had so
feared, even though it offered no greater opportunities than had always
lain before him, would tingle with possibilities. Wait? He could wait
an eternity with her by his side and every waiting minute would be a
golden minute. He could go back to that little office now and find a
thousand things to do. He could hew out a career that would honor her.
He saw numberless chances for reform work into which he could throw
himself, heart and soul, while waiting. But there would be no waiting;
life would begin from the first hour. What more did he need than her?
He shuddered back from his luxurious room at the hotel as from
something cheap.

A loaf of bread without even so much as a jug of wine would be paradise
enow. Just the opportunity to live and breathe and have his being in
this big pregnant universe was all he craved. He needed nothing else.
So the universe would be his.

He dared not try to read her thoughts. He had no right to do this. It
did n't matter. Her love was not essential. If he