He heard
McDowell's voice--a distant and non-essential voice it seemed to him
now--saying that he would leave them alone and that he would see them
again tomorrow. He heard the door open and close. McDowell was gone.
And the soft little arms were still tight about his neck. The sweet
crush of hair smothered his face, and on his breast she was crying now
like a baby. He held her closer. A wild exultation seized upon him, and
every fiber in his body responded to its thrill, as tautly-stretched
wires respond to an electrical storm. It passed swiftly, burning itself
out, and his heart was left dead. He heard a sound made by Wallie out
in the kitchen. He saw the walls of the room again, the chair in which
McDowell had sat, the blazing fire. His arms relaxed. The girl raised
her head and put her two hands to his face, looking at him with eyes
which Keith no longer failed to recognize. They were the eyes that had
looked at him out of the faded picture in Conniston's watch.

"Kiss me, Derry!"

It was impossible not to obey. Her lips clung to him. There was love,
adoration, in their caress.

And then she was crying again, with her arms around him tight and her
face hidden against him, and he picked her up as he would have lifted a
child, and carried her to the big chair in front of the fire. He put
her in it and stood before her, trying to smile. Her hair had loosened,
and the shining mass of it had fallen about her face and to her
shoulders. She was more than ever like a little girl as she looked up
at him, her eyes worshiping him, her lips trying to smile, and one
little hand dabbing her eyes with a tiny handkerchief that was already
wet and crushed.

"You--you don't seem very glad to see me, Derry."

"I--I'm just stunned," he managed to say. "You see--"

"It IS a shocking surprise, Derry. I meant it to be. I've been planning
it for years and years and YEARS! Please take off your coat--it's
dripping wet!--and sit down near me, on that stool!"

Again he obeyed. He was big for the stool.

"You are glad to see me, aren't you, Derry?"

She was leaning over the edge of the big chair, and one of her hands
went to his damp hair, brushing it back. It was a wonderful touch. He
had never felt anything like it before in his life, and involuntarily
he bent his head a little. In a moment she had hugged it up close to
her.

"You ARE glad, aren't you, Derry? Say 'yes.'"

"Yes," he whispered.

He could feel the swift, excited