her about, and while she called gayly over her shoulder to
the others, "Did you ever?" walked her definitively out of the house.

Langbourne did not suffer the silence which followed her going to
possess him. What he had to do he must do quickly, and he said, "Miss
Simpson, may I ask you one question?"

"Why, if you won't expect me to answer it," she suggested quaintly.

"You must do as you please about that. It has to come before I try to
excuse myself for being here; it's the only excuse I can offer. It's
this: Did you send Miss Bingham to get back your letters from me last
spring?"

"Why, of course!"

"I mean, was it your idea?"

"We thought it would be better."

The evasion satisfied Langbourne, but he asked, "Had I given you some
cause to distrust me at that time?"

"Oh, no," she protested. "We got to talking it over, and--and we thought
we had better."

"Because I had come here without being asked?"

"No, no; it wasn't that," the girl protested.

"I know I oughtn't to have come. I know I oughtn't to have written to
you in the beginning, but you had let me write, and I thought you would
let me come. I tried always to be sincere with you; to make you feel
that you could trust me. I believe that I am an honest man; I thought I
was a better man for having known you through your letters. I couldn't
tell you how much they had been to me. You seemed to think, because I
lived in a large place, that I had a great many friends; but I have very
few; I might say I hadn't any--such as I thought I had when I was
writing to you. Most of the men I know belong to some sort of clubs; but
I don't. I went to New York when I was feeling alone in the world,--it
was from something that had happened to me partly through my own
fault,--and I've never got over being alone there. I've never gone into
society; I don't know what society is, and I suppose that's why I am
acting differently from a society man now. The only change I ever had
from business was reading at night: I've got a pretty good library.
After I began to get your letters, I went out more--to the theatre, and
lectures, and concerts, and all sorts of things--so that I could have
something interesting to write about; I thought you'd get tired of
always hearing about me. And your letters filled up my life, so that I
didn't seem alone any more. I read them all hundreds of times; I should
have said that I knew them by heart, if they had not been as fresh at
last as