prison.

She talked to him of how he was loved, of how noble his influence had
been in their lives. She analyzed him to himself, saying things she would
never have dared say had there been the slightest chance of so much
response as the flutter of an eyelid. And as, so it seemed to her, the
sympathetic relations and understanding between them grew, she became
franker, talked of her aspirations--new-born aspirations in harmony with
his life and belief. And, explaining herself for his benefit and bringing
to light her inmost being to show to him, she saw it herself. And when
she one day said to him, "Your illness has made a better woman of me,
father, dear father," she felt it with all her heart.

It was from this atmosphere, and enveloped in it, that she went out to
greet Ross; and, as she went, she was surprised at her own calmness
before the prospect of seeing him again, after six months'
separation--the longest in their lives.

His expression was scrupulously correct--joy at seeing her shadowed by
sympathy for her calamity. When they were safely alone, he took her hand
and was about to kiss her. Her beauty was of the kind that is different
from, and beyond, memory's best photograph. She never looked exactly the
same twice; that morning she seemed to him far more tempting than he had
been thinking, with his head for so many weeks full of worldly ideas. He
was thrilled anew, and his resolve hesitated before the fine pallor of
her face, the slim lines of her figure, and the glimpses of her smooth
white skin through the openwork in the yoke and sleeves of her blouse.
But, instead of responding she drew back, just a little. He instantly
suspected her of being in the state of mind into which he had been trying
to get himself. He dropped her hand. A trifling incident, but a trifle is
enough to cut the communications between two human beings; it often
accomplishes what the rudest shocks would not. They went to the far,
secluded end of the garden, he asking and she answering questions about
her father.

"What is it, Del?" he said abruptly, at length. "You act strained toward
me." He did not say this until she had been oppressed almost into silence
by the height and the thickness of the barrier between them.

"I guess it's because I've been shut in with father," she suggested.
"I've seen no one to talk to, except the family and the doctor, for
weeks." And she tried to fix her mind on how handsome and attractive he
was. As