s it were, with the stillness of night. And half lying on the
bed in her dressing-gown, her head leaning on the rail at the foot, was
Alice, just as sleep had overtaken her.

Lawford returned to the door and listened. It seemed he heard a voice
talking downstairs, and yet not talking, for it ran on and on in an
incessant slightly argumentative monotony that had neither break nor
interruption. He closed the door, and stooping laid his hand softly on
Alice's narrow, still childish hand that lay half-folded on her knee.
Her eyes opened instantly and gazed widely into his face. A slow vacant
smile of sleep came and went and her fingers tightened gently over his
as again her lids drooped down over the drowsy blue eyes.

'At last, at last, dear,' she said; 'I have been waiting such a time.
But we mustn't talk much. Mother is waiting up, reading.'

Faintly through the close-shut door came the sound of that distant
expressionless voice monotonously rising and falling.

'Why didn't you tell me, dear?' Alice still sleepily whispered. 'Would
I have asked a single question? How could I? Oh, if you had only trusted
me!'

'But the change--the change, Alice! You must have seen that. You spoke
to me, you did think I was only a stranger; and even when you knew, it
was only fear on your face, dearest, and aversion; and you turned to
your mother first. Don't think, Alice, that I am...God only knows--I'm
not complaining. But truth is best whatever it is. I do feel that. You
mustn't be afraid of hurting me, my dear.'

Her very hands seemed to quicken in his as now, with sleep quite gone,
the fret of memory returned, and she must reassure both herself and him.
'But you see, dear, mother had told me that you--besides, I did know
you at once, really; quite inside, you know, deep down. I know I was
perplexed; I didn't understand; but that was all. Why, even when you
came up in the dark, and we talked--if you only knew how miserable I had
been--though I knew even then there was something different, still I
was not a bit afraid. Was I? And shouldn't I have been afraid, horribly
afraid, if YOU had not been YOU?' She repressed a little shudder, and
clasped his hand more closely. 'Don't let us say anything more about it,
she implored him; 'we are just together again, you and I; that is all
that matters.' But her words were like brave soldiers who have fought
their way through an ambuscade but have left all confidence behind them.

Lawford lis