: "To think that Tom was here
yesterday, and this had to happen to-day, when he's half-way to Paris! I
wish he hadn't gone. I wish I had him here to back me up."

"Why don't you telegraph for him?" suggested Estelle, eagerly.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't do that,"--Aurora's vehemence subsided,--"it's not
important enough for that."

"My dear Aurora," said Gerald, stopping in front of her, his whole
person expressing hurt and remonstrance little short of indignation, "if
your wishing for Doctor Bewick signifies that you do not feel you have
friends near you on whose attachment you can count, surely you do wrong
to some of us!"

Though his tone scolded Aurora sharply for her lack of faith, Estelle's
ear caught a trembling edge to his voice expressive of deep feeling.
Estelle had the good sense to see that Gerald must inevitably desire to
make more exposition of his allegiance, and the good feeling to know
that this could be done better if she were not present. Gerald, with his
little peace-offering, was at the moment in favor with Estelle. His
explicitness, his righteous violence, his entire adequacy on the subject
of Charlie Hunt, had charmed her. She also wanted Aurora to have any
comfort the hour might afford. She on the spot feigned to understand
Busteretto's pawing of her dress as an expression of desire to go into
the garden and see the little sparrows. She swept him up from the floor
with one hand and, tucking him under her arm, slipped out of the room.

Gerald stood grasping his elbows. He had a look like that of some man,
known so far as a harmless retiring burgher, about to make a public
confession which will change all, bringing his head perhaps to the
block; or the look of a man on the verge of a precipice, still half
resisting the desire to jump, yet knowing that he will jump, nothing can
save him from it; the look of a man, in fine, pregnant with intention,
but walking in a dream.

There was silence for a minute after Estelle left the room. Then Gerald
said very stiffly, very formally:

"If you would do me the honor, dearest Aurora, the very great honor, of
consenting to take my name, the right I should have to defend you would
be--would be--part of my great happiness."

Aurora stared at him. Beneath the frank investigation of her eyes his
own dropped in modesty and insuperable embarrassment.

There was another silence before he added:

"I would try very much to make you happy."

Aurora repressed the fi