t longing,--and I have done all these things. Lord! I wonder
if I can possibly be dreaming all this for the thousandth time."

"I was thinking of you when I came into this room,--not ten minutes
ago,--and suddenly I saw you. I was terrified. I knew then that my
dreams were coming true,--I knew it, and I don't know why I did not run
away. Any self-respecting, modest girl would have done so. But what did
I do? I, a supposedly sensible, well-brought-up--"

"You caught me trying to run away," he broke in. "I give you my word,
my heart was in my throat all the time I was working over that
fire,--scared stiff with the fear that you would come in and bayonet me
with one of those icicle looks of yours. And see what really happened!"

They were silent for some time, staring into the fire. Suddenly his arm
tightened; he drew a sharp breath. She looked up quickly.

"Why are you frowning?"

"I was just thinking," he replied after a moment's hesitation.

He gave a queer little jerk of his head, as if casting off something
that bothered him. Into his paradise had slipped the memory of a night
not long since when he held the yielding, responsive form of another
woman in his arms, and felt the thrill of an ignoble passion surging
through his veins. The kiss of the sensualist had burned on his lips for
days; even to this hour it had clung to them; he was never free from
the fire it had started in his imagination. And always on Olga's red,
alluring lips lurked the reminder that she had not forgotten; in her
eyes lay the light of expectancy.

"Of whom?" asked Ruth, not coyly, but with a directness that startled
him. She seemed to have divined that his thoughts were not of her in
that brief, flitting instant.

"Of myself," he answered, quite truthfully.

She laid her hand on his. "I forbid you to think of any one but me," she
said.

He was silent for a moment. "I shall never think of any one but you,
Ruth Clinton," he said earnestly. "You have nothing to fear."

"I believe you," she said, and pressed his hand tightly. After a slight
pause, she went on, looking straight into his eyes: "I might have lost
you, dear,--and I could have blamed no one but myself. She--she is very
alluring."

He shook his head. "I've always been of the opinion that Samson's hair
needed trimming. His mother probably brought him up with Fauntleroy
curls, poor chap. If he'd had his hair cut regularly, he wouldn't have
looked such an ass when Delilah got