" cried the other. "That I should dream she would speak to
me or have anything to do with me, was to cast a doubt upon her loyalty
as a daughter. She was right, I say! And she did the only thing she
could do: rebuked me before them all. No one ever merited what he got
more roundly than I deserved that. Who was I, in her eyes, that I should
besiege her with my importunities, who but her father's worst enemy?"

Deep anxiety knitted Crailey's brow. "I understood she knew of the
quarrel," he said, thoughtfully. "I saw that, the other evening when
I helped her out of the crowd. She spoke of it on the way home, I
remember; but how did she know that you were Vanrevel? No one in town
would be apt to mention you to her."

"No, but she did know, you see."

"Yes," returned Mr. Gray slowly. "So it seems! Probably her father told
her to avoid you, and described you so that she recognized you as the
man who caught the kitten."

He paused, picked up the flask, and again applied himself to its
contents, his eyes peering over the up-tilted vessel at Tom, who
continued to pace up and down the length of the office. After a time,
Crailey, fumbling in his coat, found a long cheroot, and, as he lit it,
inquired casually:

"Do you remember if she addressed you by name?"

"I think not," Tom answered, halting. "What does it matter?"

Crailey drew a deep breath.

"It doesn't," he returned.

"She knew me well enough," said Tom, sadly, as he resumed his sentry-go.

"Yes," repeated Crailey, deliberately. "So it seems; so it seems!" He
blew a long stream of smoke out into the air before him, and softly
mur-mured again: "So it seems, so it seems."

Silence fell, broken only by the sound of Tom's footsteps, until,
presently, some one informally shouted his name from the street below.
It was only Will Cummings, passing the time of day, but when Tom turned
from the window after answering him, Crailey, his poem, and his flask
were gone.

That evening Vanrevel sat in the dusty office, driving himself to his
work with a sharp goad, for there was a face that came between him and
all else in the world, and a voice that sounded always in his ears.
But the work was done before he rose from his chair, though he showed a
haggard visage as he bent above his candles to blow them out.

It was eleven o'clock; Crailey had not come back, and Tom knew that his
light-hearted friend would not return for many hours; and so, having no
mind to read, and no b