ce sounded in her ears
which drove all else from her thoughts and sent the hot-blood flooding
her cheeks and neck in a crimson tide.

"We meet again, Miss Murdaugh. I told you that it would be soon!"

She found herself looking up into Kearn Thode's eyes, and the wonder of
it held her dumb. As unconscious as a child of the instinctive
movement, she extended both hands, and he caught and pressed them
tightly for a moment before releasing them.

"Mr. Thode! I had almost given up hope." The words sprang to her
lips. "I thought you would come before and I used to look about for
you everywhere we went at first. It was silly, of course, for I knew
that you had your work to do down there, but it would have been nice to
see a really familiar face."

The young engineer, too, flushed.

"I meant to come before, but I was delayed----" He broke off. "Was it
so awful then, the first plunge? May I remind you that you have
fulfilled my prophecy? Just to look at you now makes me half believe
those Limasito days were a dream!"

"They're still real to me," Willa said gravely. "They are the only
real things and real people I have known. All this up here--oh! it's
very pleasant, of course, and new and amusing, but it doesn't reach
deep down. It doesn't seem to mean anything."

"So soon?" He raised his eyebrows in whimsical dismay. "My sister
wrote me of your success and I was very glad. I knew it would not
change you, but I did not think the glamour would wear off so quickly."

"Your sister?" Willa cried. "I'm so sorry that I only met her once.
She dined with us, but since then I have not seen her. I should like
to have known her better."

"She called twice, but you were not at home. After that she went South
and she has only just returned. May I bring her to call to-morrow?"

"I shall be delighted," Willa paused, regarding him with a little,
puzzled frown. "Do you know you have changed, somehow, Mr. Thode? You
are ever so much thinner, and pale beneath your tan, and you look--oh,
almost as if you had been suffering! Am I imagining things, or have
you been ill?"

"I had an accident just after you left Limasito. It was nothing
serious, just a slight concussion, but it laid me up for some weeks,"
Thode replied easily. "That is what delayed my work and prevented my
return before."

He looked beyond her as he spoke, and his face darkened swiftly.
Willa, noting the transition, glanced over her shoulder to s