lights of the new town were very bright. It looked like a dream-city seen
from afar.

"I guess we are just a couple of Peris shut outside," said Mab in her
brisk, unsentimental voice. "I like it best outside, don't you, Big
Bear?"

"Yes," said Merefleet, with a simplicity that provoked her mirth.

"Oh, aren't you just perfect!" she said. "You've done me no end of good.
I'd pay you back if I could."

Merefleet was silent. He could not see her beautiful face, but her words
touched him inexplicably.

There was a long pause. Then, to his great surprise, a warm little hand
slipped on to his knee in the darkness and a voice, so small that he
hardly recognised it, said humbly:

"Mr. Merefleet, I'm real sorry."

Merefleet started a little.

"Good heavens! Why?" he said.

"Sorry you disapprove of me," she said, with a little break in her voice.
"Bert used to be the same. But he's different now. He knows I wasn't made
prim and proper."

She paused. Merefleet's hand was on her own. He sat in silence, but
somehow his silence was kind.

She went on. "I wasn't going to speak last night. Only you looked so
melancholy at dinner. And then I thought p'r'aps you were lonely, like
I am. I didn't find out till afterwards that you didn't like the way I
talked."

"Do you know you make me feel a most objectionable cad?" said Merefleet.

"Oh, no, you aren't that," she hastened to assure him. "I'm positive you
aren't that. It was my fault. I spoke first. I thought you looked real
sad. And I always want to hearten up sad folks. You see I've been there,
and I know what it is."

"You!" said Merefleet.

Did he hear a sob in the darkness beside him? He fancied so. The hand
that lay beneath his own twitched as if agitated.

"What do you know about trouble?" said Merefleet.

She did not answer him. Only he heard a long, hard sigh. Then she laughed
rather mirthlessly.

"Well," she said, "there aren't many things in this world worth crying
for. You've had enough of me, I guess. It's time I shunted."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but Merefleet's hold tightened.

"No, no. Not yet," he said, almost as if he were pleading with her. "I've
behaved abominably. But don't punish me like this!"

She laughed again and yielded.

"You ought to know your own mind by now," she said, with something of her
former briskness. "It's a rum world, Mr. Merefleet."

"It isn't the world," said Merefleet. "It's the people in it. Now, Miss
Ward,