like to think I was marrying you for what you
have?--or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?'"]

But his powerful glance searched on. He said, "Is it possible that you
and I are deceiving ourselves--and that we'll marry and wake up--and be
bored and dissatisfied--like so many of our friends?"

"No--no," she cried, wildly agitated. "Fred, dear we love each other.
You know we do. I don't use words as well as you do--and my mind works
in a queer way--Perhaps I didn't mean what I said. No matter. If my
love were put to the test--Fred, I don't ask anything more than that
your love for me would stand the tests my love for you would stand."

He caught her in his arms and kissed her with more passion than he had
ever felt for her before. "I believe you, Jo," he said. "I believe you."

"I love you so--that I could be jealous even of her--of that little girl
in your office. Fred, I didn't confess all the truth. It isn't true that
I thought her--a nobody. When she first came in here--it was in this
very room--I thought she was as near nothing as any girl I'd ever seen.
Then she began to change--as you said. And--oh, dearest, I can't help
hating her! And when I tried to get her away from you, and she wouldn't
come----"

"Away from me!" he cried, laughing.

"I felt as if it were like that," she pleaded. "And she wouldn't
come--and treated me as if she were queen and I servant--only politely,
I must say, for Heaven knows I don't want to injure her----"

"Shall I have her discharged?"

"Fred!" exclaimed she indignantly. "Do you think I could do such a
thing?"

"She'd easily get another job as good. Tetlow can find her one. Does
that satisfy you?"

"No," she confessed. "It makes me feel meaner than ever."

"Now, Jo, let's drop this foolish seriousness about nothing at all.
Let's drop it for good."

"Nothing at all--that's exactly it. I can't understand, Fred. What is
there about her that makes her haunt me? That makes me afraid she'll
haunt you?"

Norman felt a sudden thrill. He tightened his hold upon her hands
because his impulse had been to release them. "How absurd!" he said,
rather noisily.

"Isn't it, though?" echoed she. "Think of you and me almost quarreling
about such a trivial person." Her laugh died away. She shivered, cried,
"Fred, I'm superstitious about her. I'm--I'm--_afraid_!" And she flung
herself wildly into his arms.

"She _is_ somewhat uncanny," said he, with a lightness he was far