sense of overwhelming loss.

Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek.
And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking of Derek,
and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coolly and
clearly and her heart was not aching.

She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done when
puzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened and
when it had happened and why it had happened she could not understand.
She only knew that now for the first time she had been granted a
moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.

She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not do
without him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come upon
her when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together with a
smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughter and
happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and never would
shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then she did not
love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was not love. It
might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was not the fire.
She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air and the
sunlight.

She opened her eyes and saw Uncle Chris coming down the aisle towards
her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer in the dim
light, Jill saw that it was Derek.

"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to see you!"

And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded to withdraw
delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able to record
that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Peagrim, who had changed
her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner in a
fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.

"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. Except for a mild wonder how he
came to be there, she found herself wholly unaffected by the sight of
him. "Whatever are _you_ doing here?"

Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relieved,
yet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfect
contentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jill
apparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in her
manner which he would have been glad to find there.

"Jill!" he said huskily.

It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mind
this situation could be handled only in one way.