was in her dressing-gown, and that the bags and
valises stood in a corner, just as they had been carried up from the
droschke.

With her hands still on his shoulders, she put back her head. A thin
line of white appeared between her lips, and, under their drooped lids,
her eyes shone with a moist brilliance. She looked at him eagerly for
some seconds, and it seemed to him wistfully, too. Then, in an
inexplicable change of mood, she let her arms fall, and turned away.
She had grown pale and despondent. There was only one thing for him to
do: to put his arms round her and draw her to his knee. Holding her
thus, he whispered in her ear words such as she loved to hear. He had
grown skilled in repeating them. Under the even murmur of his voice,
her face grew tranquil; she sank little by little into a state of
well-being; her one fear was that he would cease speaking.

On the writing-table, a gold-faced clock ticked solemnly: its minutes
went by unheeded. Maurice was the first to feel the disillusioning
shudder of reality; simultaneously, the remembrance returned to him of
what he had come intending to tell her.--He loosened her arms.

"Louise!" he said in an altered voice. "Look up, dear!--and let me see
your eyes. You won't believe me, I think, but I came this evening
meaning to talk very sensibly--nothing but common sense, in fact.
There's a great deal I want to say to you. Come, let us be two rational
people--yes? As a beginning, I'll draw up the blinds. The sun's behind
the houses now, and the room is so close."

Louise shrank from the violent, dusty light; and her face, a moment
back rapturously content, took on at once a look of apprehension.

"Not to-night, Maurice--not to-night! It's too ... too hot for common
sense to-night."

He laughed and took her hand. "Be my own brave girl, and help me. You
have only to look at me, as you know, to make me forget everything. And
that mustn't be. We have got to be serious for a little--have you ever
thought, Louise, how seldom you and I have talked seriously together?
There was never time, was there? ... in all these weeks. There was only
time to tell you how much you are to me.--But now--well, so many things
were running in my head this afternoon. This letter from home was the
beginning of them. Read it--this page here, at least--and then I'll
tell you what I've been thinking."

He put the letter into her hand, and she ran her eyes over the page.
But she laid it down wit