many things to a reflective mind.

"You look frightfully 'het up,' Bones," he said. "And your collar is
wilting. Better pause in your mad career and have some tea."

"Thanks, can't. Office hours--see you later," jerked the doctor rapidly
as he turned his car.

"What have you been doing to John to bring on an attack of 'office
hours' at this time of day?" asked Spence as he and Desire crossed the
lawn together. "Wasn't the great idea a success?"

"John thinks it was."

It was so unlike Desire to give someone else's opinion when asked for
her own that the professor said "um."

"I suppose," she added stiffly, "it is a question of values."

"Something for something--and a doubt as to whether one pays too dear
for the whistle? Well, don't worry about it. If you could not help, you
probably could not hurt, either.... I had a letter from Li Ho this
afternoon."

"A letter!" Desire's swift step halted. Her eyes, wide and startled,
questioned him. "A letter from Li Ho? But Li Ho can't write--in
English."

"Can't he? Wait until you've read it. But I shan't let you read it, if
you look like that."

"Like what? Frightened? But I am frightened. I can't help it. I know
it's foolish. But the more I forget--the worse it is when I remember."

"You must get over that. Sit here while I fetch the letter. Aunt is
out. I'll tell Olive to bring tea."

Desire sat where he placed her. It was very pleasant there with the
green slope of the lawn and the cool shadow of trees. But her widely
opened eyes saw nothing of its homely peace. They saw, instead, a
curving stretch of moonlit beach and a trail which wound upwards into
thick darkness. Ever since she had broken away, that vision had haunted
her, now near and menacing, now dimmer and farther off, but always
there like a spectre of the past.

"It hasn't let me go--it is there always--waiting," thought Desire. And
in the still warmth of the garden she shivered.

The sense of Self, which is our proudest possession, receives some
curious shocks at times. Before the mystery of its own strange changing
the personality stands appalled. The world swings round in chaos before
the startled question, "Who am I--where is that other Self that once
was I?"

Only a few months separated Desire from her old life in the mountain
cottage and already the mental and spiritual separation seemed
infinite. But was it? Was there any real separation at all? That ghost
of herself, which she had left