him, and how he
had refused her paltry request lest he should be laughed at. Her
reflections then were not on his waning love. She was filled with the
terror of losing him--of losing all that remained to her in the world.
Presently she began to walk slowly towards the stairs, descended them,
and looked around her. The hall, at least, had not changed. She listened,
and a bee hummed in through the open doorway. A sudden longing for
companionship possessed her-no matter whose; and she walked hurriedly, as
though she were followed, through the empty rooms until she came upon
George Pembroke stretched at full length on the leather-covered lounge in
the library. He opened his eyes, and got up with alacrity.

"Please don't move," she said.

He looked at her. Although his was not what may be called a sympathetic
temperament, he was not without a certain knowledge of women;
superficial, perhaps. But most men of his type have seen them in despair;
and since he was not related to this particular despair, what finer
feelings he had were the more easily aroused. It must have been clear to
her then that she had lost the power to dissemble, all the clearer
because of Mr. Pembroke's cheerfulness.

"I wasn't going to sleep," he assured her. "Circumstantial evidence is
against me, I know. Where's Abby? reading French literature?"

"I haven't seen her," replied Honora.

"She usually goes to bed with a play at this hour. It's a horrid habit
--going to bed, I mean. Don't you think? Would you mind showing me about
a little?"

"Do you really wish to?" asked Honora, incredulously.

"I haven't been here since my senior year," said Mr. Pembroke. "If the
old General were alive, he could probably tell you something of that
visit--he wrote to my father about it. I always liked the place, although
the General was something of a drawback. Fine old man, with no memory."

"I should have thought him to have had a good memory," she said.

"I have always been led to believe that he was once sent away from
college in his youth,--for his health," he explained significantly. "No
man has a good memory who can't remember that. Perhaps the battle of
Gettysburg wiped it out."

Thus, in his own easy-going fashion, Mr. Pembroke sought to distract her.
She put on a hat, and they walked about, the various scenes recalling
incidents of holidays he had spent at Highlawns. And after a while Honora
was thankful that chance had sent her in this hour to him ra