Then I came home and
I saw you again. Suddenly my dream crystallized into clear, unshakable
fact; I loved, I had always loved you; nothing that other people could
say against you would have any effect. It lay just with you, and to-day
you have given me your answer and broken with your own hand the dream."

He turned towards the door; Joan staggered to her feet and ran to him.
The vague memory in her mind had leapt to life; his eyes had often
reminded her of someone. She remembered now that he was the young doctor
that Aunt Janet had sent for. She remembered her own defiance as she had
faced him and the pity in his eyes.

"Dick," she whispered, "Dick, I didn't know, I didn't understand. I
thought--oh, don't go away and leave me just like this, I might
explain." Her torrent of words broke down before the look on his face;
she fell to her knees, clutching at his hands. "Won't you listen? It was
because I was afraid to tell you; I was afraid, afraid."

Her position, the paroxysm of tears which, once they came, she could in
no way stop, disquieted him. He shook her hands from him. "And because
you were afraid," he said stiffly, "I suppose you had the other man here
to protect you." Then his mood changed.

"Whatever you have done," he said, "it isn't any business of mine.
Please forgive me for ranting like a schoolmaster, and please don't cry
like that. While I sat there watching that other man and feeling that
everything my heart had been set on was falling to pieces all round me,
I wanted to hurt you back again. It's a pugnacious sensation that one
gets sometimes, but it's gone now; I don't want you to be hurt. It was
not your fault that I lifted you up in my heart like that; it is not
altogether your fault that you have fallen. Perhaps you did not know how
cruel you were being when you had that other man here to make clear to
me something you did not wish to put into words yourself. I have said
some beastly things to you, and I am sorry for them. Please don't let
them worry you for long."

Then he had gone, before she had time to speak or lift her hands to hold
him. Gone, and as she crouched against the door the sound of his feet
trod into her heart, each step a throb of agony.

Mrs. Carew was holding forth to Fanny in the hall as Dick swung past
them. He did not glance at them even, and Fanny did not have a chance to
call out to him, he went so rapidly, slamming the door behind him.

"Not as how they haven't left