m, although I was so glad to
see him that a dance step would more appropriately have expressed my
feelings, and returned his warm kiss and greeting. He kept my hand in
his as he came down to the fire, not even releasing it when he kissed
his mother, who still maintained the rigid dignity with which she
surrounded herself when displeased.

"Well," Dicky said, manfully ignoring any hint of unpleasantness,
"this is what I call comfortable, coming home to a fire and a welcome
like this on a dreary day."

There was a note of forced jollity in his voice that made me look up
quickly into his eyes. As they looked into mine, I caught a glimpse of
something half-hidden, half-revealed, something fiercely sombre, which
frightened me.

"What had happened," I asked myself, with a little clutch at my heart,
"to make Dicky look at me in this way?" I had a longing to take him
away where we could be alone.

I was glad when my mother-in-law rose stiffly from her chair.

"If you are too much occupied, Margaret," she remarked, icily, "I will
go and tell Katie that Richard is here, and that she may serve dinner
immediately."

She swept out of the room majestically, and as the door closed after
her Dicky caught me in his arms and clasped me so closely that I was
frightened.

"Tell me you love me," he said tensely, "better than anybody in the
world or out of it." His eyes were glowing with some emotion I could
not understand. I felt my vague uneasiness of his first entrance
deepen into real foreboding of something unknown and terrible coming
to me.

"Why, of course, you know that, sweetheart," I replied. "There is no
one for me but just you! But what is the matter? Something must be the
matter."

"Where did you get that idea?" he evaded. "I just wanted to be sure,
that's all. Wait here for me--I'll dash up and get some of the dust
off in a jiffy before dinner."

I spent an anxious interval before, he came down, for, despite his
denials, I felt that something out of the ordinary must have happened
to cause his queer, passionate outburst.

When he returned to, the living room, it was with no trace of any
emotion, and throughout the dinner, while not so given to conversation
as usual, he showed no indication that he was at all disturbed.

But I was very glad when the dinner was over, and we returned to the
living-room fire. And when, after a few minutes, my mother-in-law
yawned sleepily and went to her room, I drew a deep breath