You have something to say to her, I know, Mr. Denham. You can find your
way?" she vaguely indicated the ceiling with a gesture of her hand. She
had become suddenly serious and composed, mistress in her own house.
The gesture with which she dismissed him had a dignity that Ralph never
forgot. She seemed to make him free with a wave of her hand to all that
she possessed. He left the room.

The Hilberys' house was tall, possessing many stories and passages with
closed doors, all, once he had passed the drawing-room floor, unknown to
Ralph. He mounted as high as he could and knocked at the first door he
came to.

"May I come in?" he asked.

A voice from within answered "Yes."

He was conscious of a large window, full of light, of a bare table, and
of a long looking-glass. Katharine had risen, and was standing with some
white papers in her hand, which slowly fluttered to the ground as
she saw her visitor. The explanation was a short one. The sounds were
inarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning save themselves.
As if the forces of the world were all at work to tear them asunder they
sat, clasping hands, near enough to be taken even by the malicious eye
of Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit.

"Don't move, don't go," she begged of him, when he stooped to gather the
papers she had let fall. But he took them in his hands and, giving her
by a sudden impulse his own unfinished dissertation, with its mystical
conclusion, they read each other's compositions in silence.

Katharine read his sheets to an end; Ralph followed her figures as far
as his mathematics would let him. They came to the end of their tasks at
about the same moment, and sat for a time in silence.

"Those were the papers you left on the seat at Kew," said Ralph at
length. "You folded them so quickly that I couldn't see what they were."

She blushed very deeply; but as she did not move or attempt to hide her
face she had the appearance of some one disarmed of all defences, or
Ralph likened her to a wild bird just settling with wings trembling to
fold themselves within reach of his hand. The moment of exposure had
been exquisitely painful--the light shed startlingly vivid. She had
now to get used to the fact that some one shared her loneliness. The
bewilderment was half shame and half the prelude to profound rejoicing.
Nor was she unconscious that on the surface the whole thing must appear
of the utmost absurdity. She looked t