ship. He got up,
forgetting his ugliness, and went across the room to her.

"Will you come for a walk," he said eagerly. He held out his hand like
a child; as a child she stood up and took it; like two children they
went out and down the sunset shore. Roger was again incredibly happy.
It was not the same happiness as had been his in that vanished
fortnight; it was a homelier happiness with its feet on the earth. The
amazing thing was that he felt she was happy too--happy because she
was walking with _him_, "Jarback" Temple, whom no girl had even
thought about. A certain secret well-spring of fancy that had seemed
dry welled up in him sparklingly again.

Through the summer weeks the odd courtship went on. Roger talked to
her as he had never talked to anyone. He did not find it in the least
hard to talk to her, though her necessity of watching his face so
closely while he talked bothered him occasionally. He felt that her
intent gaze was reading his soul as well as his lips. She never talked
much herself; what she did say she spoke so low that it was hardly
above a whisper, but she had a voice as lovely as her face--sweet,
cadenced, haunting. Roger was quite mad about her, and he was horribly
afraid that he could never get up enough courage to ask her to marry
him. And he was afraid that if he did, she would never consent. In
spite of her shy, eager welcomes he could not believe she could care
for him--for _him_. She liked him, she was sorry for him, but it was
unthinkable that she, white, exquisite Lilith, could marry him and sit
at his table and his hearth. He was a fool to dream of it.

To the existence of romance and glamour in which he lived, no gossip
of the countryside penetrated. Yet much gossip there was, and at last
it came blundering in on Roger to destroy his fairy world a second
time. He came downstairs one night in the twilight, ready to go to
Lilith. His aunt and an old crony were talking in the kitchen; the
crony was old, and Catherine, supposing Roger was out of the house,
was talking loudly in that horrible voice of hers with still more
horrible zest and satisfaction.

"Yes, I'm guessing it'll be a match as ye say. Oh the b'y's doing
well. He ain't for every market, as I'm bound to admit. Ef she wan't
deaf she wouldn't look at him, no doubt. But she has scads of
money--they won't need to do a tap of work unless they like--and she's
a good housekeeper too her aunt tells me. She's pretty enough to suit