listening to another step upon the stair and she
trembled when she heard the steps hastening down the corridor.

Van Lennop saw only her as he came toward her with outstretched hands,
speaking her name with the yearning tenderness with which he had spoken
it to himself a hundred times--

"Essie--Essie Tisdale!"

He kissed her, and she yielded, as though there were no need for words
between them.

"But my letter? My telegram? Why didn't you answer?"

Her eyes widened with astonishment.

"Your letter! Your telegram!"

"You didn't get them?"

"Not one."

"Who did then?"

She shook her head.

"No one knew you'd gone but Dr. Harpe."

"Dr. Harpe!"

"You wrote her!"

"I wrote Dr. Harpe?" He stared at her for one incredulous second. "I
wrote Dr. Harpe! She said so?"

"She said you left a letter for her."

There leaped into his steel-gray eyes a look which reminded Kincaid of
the play of a jagged flash of lightning. He spoke slowly and enunciated
very carefully when he said--

"I knew Dr. Harpe had the instincts of a prying servant, but I scarcely
thought she'd go as far as that."

"Essie," Kincaid tapped her on the shoulder, "don't forget that your old
Uncle Dick is here and waiting to be noticed."

He laughed aloud at her confusion and said as he and Van Lennop shook
each other's hand--

"Just as I think I'm fixed for life, by George! I'm shoved out in the
cold again; for I am forced to believe"--his eyes twinkled as he looked
at Van Lennop--"that I am not the only Homeseeker left in Crowheart."

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