quisite day! "I have so long wanted to have
a letter from you," she said. "I have almost wished you would go away
for a little time, so that I might have a letter from you."

He had guessed this. He had written to give her delight.

"Did you like the first words of it, Grizel?" he asked eagerly.

The lover and the artist spoke together.

Could she admit that the letter was unopened, and why? Oh, the pain to
him! She nodded assent. It was not really an untruth, she told
herself. She did like them--oh, how she liked them, though she did not
know what they were!

"I nearly began 'My beloved,'" he said solemnly.

Somehow she had expected it to be this. "Why didn't you?" she asked, a
little disappointed.

"I like the other so much better," he replied. "To write it was so
delicious to me, I thought you would not mind."

"I don't mind," she said hastily. (What could it be?)

"But you would have preferred 'beloved'?"

"It is such a sweet name."

"Surely not so sweet as the other, Grizel?"

"No," she said, "no." (Oh, what could it be!)

"Have you destroyed it?" he asked, and the question was a shock to
her. Her hand rose instinctively to defend something that lay near her
heart.

"I could not," she whispered.

"Do you mean you wanted to?" he asked dolefully.

"I thought you wanted it," she murmured.

"I!" he cried, aghast, and she was joyous again.

"Can't you guess where it is?" she said.

He understood. "Grizel! You carry my letter there!"

She was full of glee; but she puzzled him presently.

"Do you think I could go now?" she inquired eagerly.

"And leave me?"

It was dreadful of her, but she nodded.

"I want to go home."

"Is it not home, Grizel, when you are with me?"

"I want to go away from home, then." She said it as if she loved to
tantalize him.

"But why?"

"I won't tell you." She was looking wistfully at the door. "I have
something to do."

"It can wait."

"It has waited too long." He might have heard an assenting rustle from
beneath her bodice.

"Do let me go," she said coaxingly, as if he held her.

"I can't understand----" he began, and broke off. She was facing him
demurely but exultantly, challenging him, he could see, to read her
now. "Just when I am flattering myself that I know everything about
you, Grizel," he said, with a long face, "I suddenly wonder whether I
know anything."

She would have liked to clap her hands. "You must remember that we
have changed plac