f her book with her free hand. "Except on Saturdays and Sundays,
when I go to friends of mine, I am usually alone--and generally glad to
be, after my day's work. Besides, I have been with Aunt Lena this
evening. I only left her an hour ago."

He came nearer and stood looking at her and at the book in her hands. He
seemed suddenly to recognise the book, and saw that it was open at the
last page.

"I ought not to have quoted that to you," he said in a low voice; "those
words of that poem--there under your hand."

"Why not?" she asked, shutting the book up and holding it closed between
her hands. "Why shouldn't you have quoted it?" and she looked at the
book intently, listening for his voice again.

"Because it savoured of self-righteousness, and that was not becoming in
a man who had brought his own troubles upon himself."

May did not look up at him; she felt, too keenly the poignancy of that
brief confession, dignified in its simplicity, a confession that a
weaker man would have been afraid to make, and a man of less
intelligence could not have made because he would not have understood
the dignity of it. May found no words with which to speak to him; she
could only look at the carpet stupidly and admire him with all the
pulses in her body.

"Your interpretation of 'the Glory of the Lord' is the right one; I
think--I feel convinced of it."

He stood before her, wearing a curiously pathetic expression of
diffidence.

That moment passed, and then he seemed to force himself back into his
old attitude of courteous reserve.

"You were just going when I came in," he said, moving and putting out
his hand to open the door for her. "I am keeping you."

"I was going," said May, "but, Dr. Middleton----"

He let his arm drop. "Yes?" he said.

"You have, I am afraid, a totally wrong idea of me."

He stared straight into her face as she spoke, but it was his veiled
stare, in which he held himself aloof for reasons of his own.

"I don't think so," he said quickly.

"I talked about 'my interpretation' of the words you quoted," she said,
"just as if I spoke from some special knowledge, from personal
experience, I mean. I had no intention of giving you that idea; it was
merely a _thought_ I expressed."

How could she say what her heart was full of without betraying herself?
He was waiting for her to speak with a strained look in his eyes.

"And, of course, any one can 'think.' I am afraid----Somehow--I find it
imposs