his mouth she said: "Mouth that
does not know how to laugh--poor, tragic mouth!" He let her do nearly
all the talking. She sat there crooning over him as if he were her
child.

And so the flag was saved. He begged her to let him tell their little
world of his love for her, and especially was he eager to go straight
with it to the doctor. But she would not have this. "David and Elspeth
shall know in good time," she said, very nobly. "I am sure they are
fond of each other, and they shall know of our happiness on the day
when they tell us of their own." And until that great day came she was
not to look upon herself as engaged to Tommy, and he must never kiss
her again until they were engaged. I think it was a pleasure to her to
insist on this. It was her punishment to herself for ever having
doubted Tommy.

* * * * *

PART II

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN

As they sat amid the smell of rosin on that summer day, she told him,
with a glance that said, "Now you will laugh at me," what had brought
her into Caddam Wood.

"I came to rub something out."

He reflected. "A memory?"

"Yes."

"Of me?"

She nodded.

"An unhappy memory?"

"Not to me," she replied, leaning on him. "I have no memory of you I
would rub out, no, not the unhappiest one, for it was you, and that
makes it dear. All memories, however sad, of loved ones become sweet,
don't they, when we get far enough away from them?"

"But to whom, then, is this memory painful, Grizel?"

Again she cast that glance at him. "To her," she whispered.

"'That little girl'!"

"Yes; the child I used to be. You see, she never grew up, and so they
are not distant memories to her. I try to rub them out of her mind by
giving her prettier things to think of. I go to the places where she
was most unhappy, and tell her sweet things about you. I am not
morbid, am I, in thinking of her still as some one apart from myself?
You know how it began, in the lonely days when I used to look at her
in mamma's mirror, and pity her, and fancy that she was pitying me and
entreating me to be careful. Always when I think I see her now, she
seems to be looking anxiously at me and saying, 'Oh, do be careful!'
And the sweet things I tell her about you are meant to show her how
careful I have become. Are you laughing at me for this? I sometimes
laugh at it myself."

"No, it is delicious," h