t wrapped up in his
gift "for a good girl."

He gazed at me for a moment without speaking, and I wonderingly returned
the gaze, not knowing what was to follow.

The moon had come sailing up like a great silver ship, over the snow
billows, and gleamed against a sky which was still a garden of
full-blown roses not yet faded, though sunset was long over. The soft,
pure light shone on his dark face, cutting it out clearly, and he had
never looked so handsome.

"You don't mean to do _me_ any harm, do you?" he said.

"I couldn't if I would, and wouldn't if I could," I answered in
surprise.

"Yet you _do_ me harm."

"You're joking!"

"I never was further from joking in my life. You do me harm because you
make me wish for something I can't have, something it's a constant fight
with me, ever since we've been thrown together, not to wish for, not to
think of. Yet you say I'm cross! Now, do you know what I mean, and will
you help me a little to remain your faithful brother, instead of
tempting me--tempting me, however unconsciously, to--to
wish--for--for--what a fool I am! I'm going to finish my mending."

I sat perfectly still, with my mouth open, feeling as if it were _my_
chain, not the car's, which had broken!

Of course if it hadn't been for all his talk of _Her_, I should have
known, or thought that I knew, well enough what he meant. But how could
I take his strange words and stammered hints for what they seemed to
suggest, knowing as I did, from his own veiled confessions, that he was
in love with some beautiful fiend who had ruined his career and then
thrown him over!

I longed to speak, to ask him just one question, but I dared not. No
words would come; and perhaps if they had, I should have regretted them,
for I was so sure he was not a man who would fall out of love with one
woman to tumble into love for another, that I didn't know what to make
of him; but the thought which his words shot into my mind, swift and
keen, and then tore away again, showed me very well what to make of
myself.

If I hadn't quite known before, I knew suddenly, all in a minute, that I
was in love, oh, but humiliatingly deep in love, with the chauffeur! It
seemed to me that no nice, well-regulated girl could ever have let
herself go tobogganing down such a steep hill, splash into such a sea of
love, unless the man were at the bottom in a boat, holding out his arms
to catch her as she fell. But the chauffeur hadn't the slightest
in