e did. Every time I saw her she seemed more grand and
perfect. I held the golden key to trifling matters not understood
before. We young fellows, who all admired her, used nevertheless to
joke a bit about her wearing collars and stocks, top boots and short
skirts; whacking her leg with a riding-whip, and stirring the fire with
her toe. But after that evening, I understood all this to be a sort of
fence behind which she hid her exquisite womanliness, because it was of
a deeper quality than any man looking upon the mere surface of her had
ever fathomed or understood. And when she came trailing down in the
evening, in something rich and clinging and black, with lots of soft
old lace covering her bosom and moving with the beating of her great
tender heart; ah, then my soul rejoiced and my eyes took their fill of
delight! I saw her, as all day long I had known her to be,--perfect in
her proud, sweet womanliness."

"Is he really unconscious," thought the doctor, "of how unmistakable a
word-picture of Jane he is painting?"

"Very soon," continued Garth, "we had three days apart, and then met
again at another house, in a weekend party. One of the season's
beauties was there, with whom my name was being freely coupled, and
something she said on that subject, combined with the fearful blankness
of those three interminable days, made me resolve to speak without
delay. I asked her to come out on to the terrace that evening. We were
alone. It was a moonlight night."

A long silence. The doctor did not break it. He knew his friend was
going over in his mind all those things of which a man does not speak
to another man.

At last Garth said simply, "I told her."

No comment from the doctor, who was vividly reminded of Jane's
"Then--it happened," when SHE had reached this point in the story.
After a few moments of further silence, steeped in the silver moonlight
of reminiscence for Garth; occupied by the doctor in a rapid piecing in
of Jane's version; the sad young voice continued:

"I thought she understood completely. Afterwards I knew she had not
understood at all. Her actions led me to believe I was accepted, taken
into her great love, even as she was wrapped around by mine. Not
through fault of hers,--ah, no; she was blameless throughout; but
because she did not, could not, understand what any touch of hers must
mean to me. In her dear life, there had never been another man; that
much I knew by unerring instinct and by her o