to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or
anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I
told you so but still you wouldn't believe."

Larry shook his head remorsefully.

"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I
have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for
anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a
devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is
any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie.
All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours--" He indicated
the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as--as an ash
can," he finished prosaically.

Ruth's happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a
kiss.

"I'll remember," she said. "You're not a brute, Larry. You're a darling
and I love you--oh immensely and I'll marry you just as quick as ever I
can and we'll be so happy you won't ever remember you have a
disposition."

Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are
nobody's business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply
ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two
went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to
Elinor Farringdon.

"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended.

"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor
Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best
friend, Nan--"

"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it's coming back. He married Nancy
Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of
hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the
addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why,
Larry, I'm remembering--really remembering," she stopped short on the
stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone.

"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come
on down and remember the rest with Annersley's help. He is some cousin.
You'd better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and
wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and
decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his
cheek which he evidently didn't get shaving."

Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her
tre