a most efficient and
comfortable valet, and Otto depended greatly upon him.

"It's all right," said Falloden quickly. "I grovelled. I ate all the
humble-pie I could think of. It was of course impossible to let him go.
Otto can't do without him. I seem somehow to have offended his dignity."

"They have so much!" said Connie, laughing, but rather unsteadily.

"One lives and learns." The tone of the words was serious--a little
anxious. Then the speaker took up his hat. "But I'm not good at managing
touchy people. Good night."

Her hand passed into his. The little fingers were cold; he could not
help enclosing them in a warm, clinging grasp. The firelit room, the
dark street outside, and the footsteps of the passers-by--they all
melted from consciousness. They only saw and heard each other.

In another minute the outer door had closed behind them. Connie was left
still in the same attitude, one hand on the chair, her head drooping,
her heart in a dream.

Falloden ran through the streets, choosing the by-ways rather than the
thoroughfares. The air was frosty, the December sky clear and starlit,
above the blue or purple haze, pierced with lights, that filled the
lower air; through which the college fronts, the distant spires and
domes showed vaguely--as beautiful "suggestions"--"notes"--from which
all detail had disappeared. He was soon on Folly Bridge, and hurrying up
the hill he pushed straight on over the brow to the Berkshire side,
leaving the cottage to his right. Fold after fold of dim wooded country
fell away to the south of the ridge; bare branching trees were all
about him; a patch of open common in front where bushes of
winter-blossoming gorse defied the dusk. It was the English winter at
its loveliest--still, patient, expectant--rich in beauties of its own
that summer knows nothing of. But Falloden was blind to it. His pulses
were full of riot. She had been so near to him--and yet so far away--so
sweet, yet so defensive. His whole nature cried out fiercely for her. "I
want her!--_I want her!_ And I believe she wants me. She's not afraid of
me now--she turns to me. What keeps us apart? Nothing that ought to
weigh for a moment against our double happiness!"

He turned and walked stormily homewards. Then as he saw the roof and
white walls of the cottage through the trees his mood wavered--and fell.
There was a life there which he had injured--a life that now depended on
him. He knew that, more intimately than