memory, tenderness, desire swam in his face, made
generous and kind the hard lines of the strong mouth. In an instant he
had swung himself over the window-sill. The girl had drawn away now into
a more shaded corner of the room, and she regarded him with a mingled
anxiety and eagerness. Was she afraid of something? Did she fear
that--she knew not quite what, but it had to do with a long ago.

"It was time you hit out, Nett," she said, half shyly. "You're more
patient than you used to be, but you're surer. My, that was a twist you
gave him, Nett. Aren't you glad to see me?" she added hastily, and with
an effort to hide her agitation.

He reached out and took her hand with a strange shyness, and a
self-consciousness which was alien to his nature. The touch of her hand
thrilled him. Their eyes met. She dropped hers. Then he gathered him
self together. "Glad to see you? Of course, of course, I'm glad. You
stunned me, Jo. Why, do you know where you are? You're a thousand miles
from home. I can't get it through my head, not really. What brings
you here? It's ten years--ten years since I saw you, and you were only
fifteen, but a fifteen that was as good as twenty."

He scanned her face closely. "What's that scar on your forehead, Jo? You
hadn't that--then."

"I ran up against something," she said evasively, her eyes glittering,
"and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?"

"No, you'd never notice it, if you weren't looking close as I am. You
see, I knew your face so well ten years ago."

He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however,
for he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his
face; it gave light and warmth to its quiet strength-or hardness.

"You were always quizzing," she said with an attempt at a laugh--"always
trying to find out things. That's why you made them reckon with you out
here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own
way; always were meant to be a success."

She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to
keep things on the surface. "You were meant to succeed--you had to," she
added.

"I've been a failure--a dead failure," he answered slowly. "So they say.
So they said. You heard them, Jo."

He jerked his head towards the open window.

"Oh, those drunken fools!" she exclaimed indignantly, and her face
hardened. "How I hate drink! It spoils everything."

There was silence for a moment. They were both thinkin