ere and there, until she came to those she
sought. Over them she pondered long, her head in her hands. They
contained a very full account of her conversation with Garth on the
afternoon of the day of the concert at Overdene; and the lines upon
which she specially dwelt were these: "His face was transfigured....
Goodness and inspiration shone from it, making it as the face of an
angel.... I never thought him ugly again. Child though I was, I
could differentiate even then between ugliness and plainness. I have
associated his face ever since with the wondrous beauty of his soul.
When he sat down, at the close of his address, I no longer thought him
a complicated form of chimpanzee. I remembered the divine halo of his
smile. Of course it was not the sort of face one COULD have wanted to
live with, or to have day after day opposite one at table, but then one
was not called to that sort of discipline, which would have been
martyrdom to me. And he has always stood to my mind since as a proof of
the truth that goodness is never ugly, and that divine love and
aspiration, shining through the plainest features, may redeem them,
temporarily, into beauty; and permanently, into a thing one loves to
remember."

At first Jane read the entire passage. Then her mind focussed itself
upon one sentence: "Of course it was not the sort of face one COULD
have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite one at
table, ... which would have been martyrdom to me."

At length Jane arose, turned on all the lights over the dressing-table,
particularly two bright ones on either side of the mirror, and, sitting
down before it, faced herself honestly.

* * * * *

When the village clock struck one, Garth Dalmain stood at his window
taking a final look at the night which had meant so much to him. He
remembered, with an amused smile, how, to help himself to calmness, he
had sat on the terrace and thought of his socks, and then had counted
the windows between his and Jane's. There were five of them. He knew
her window by the magnolia tree and the seat beneath it where he had
chanced to sit, not knowing she was above him. He leaned far out and
looked towards it now. The curtains were drawn, but there appeared
still to be a light behind them. Even as he watched, it went out.

He looked down at the terrace. He could see the stone lion and the vase
of scarlet geraniums. He could locate the exact spot where she was
sitti