d not break out into a single quotation to-night. It seemed as
if he were following the thread of some reference from year to year; for
he ran his fingers through the leaves of certain parts hastily and became
studiously intense at other parts as he gloomily pondered over them.

Neither she nor her father had mentioned Jack since the scene by the
hedge. This was entirely in keeping with custom. It seemed a matter of
instinct with both that they never talked to each other of him. Yet she
was conscious that he had been in her father's mind all through the
evening meal, and she was equally certain that her father realized that
he was in her mind.

It was late when the Doge finished his reading, and he finished it with
the page of the last book, where the fine handwriting stopped at the edge
of the blank white space of the future. An old desire, ever strong with
Mary, which she had never quite had the temerity to express, had become
impelling under the influence of her father's unusually long and silent
preoccupation.

"Am I never to have a glimpse of that treasure? Am I never, never to read
your diary?" she asked.

The Doge drew his tufted eyebrows together in utter astonishment.

"What! What, Mary! Why, Mary, I might preach a lesson on the folly of
feminine curiosity. Do you think I would ask to see your diary?"

"But I don't keep one."

"Hoo-hoo-hoo!" The Doge was blowing out his lips in an ado of deprecatory
nonsense. "Don't keep one? Have you lost your memory?"

"I had it a minute ago--yes," after an instant's playful consideration,
"I am sure that I have it now."

"Then, everybody with a memory certainly keeps a diary. Would you want
me to read all the foolish things you had ever thought? Do you think I
would want to?"

"No," she answered.

"There you are, then!" declared the Doge victoriously, as he rose,
slipping a rubber band with a forbidding snap over the last book. "And
this is all stupid personal stuff--but mine own!"

There was an unconscious sigh of weariness as he took up the thumbed
leather volumes. He was haggard. "Mine own" had given him no pleasure
that evening. All the years of his life seemed to rest heavily upon him
for a silent moment. Mary feared that she had hurt him by her request.

"You have read so much you will scarcely do any writing to-night,"
she ventured.

"Yes, I will add a few more lines--the spirit is in me--a few more days
to the long record," he said, absently, then, a