her hair. The emaciation of her face, and the
hollow shades beneath her cheek-bones, made her mouth seem redder and
fuller, though a little line on each side, where it joined the cheek,
gave it a tragic droop. And her hands! When her fingers met his he
recalled having once picked up, in the winter woods, the little
feather-light skeleton of a frozen bird--and that was what her touch was
like.

And it was he who had brought her to this by his cruelty, his
obtuseness, his base readiness to believe the worst of her! He did not
want to pour himself out in self-accusation--that seemed too easy a way
of escape. He wanted simply to take her in his arms, to ask her to give
him one more chance--and then to show her! And all the while he was
paralyzed by the group in the window.

"Can't we go out? I must speak to you," he began again nervously.

"Not this afternoon--the doctor is coming. Tomorrow----"

"I can't wait for tomorrow!"

She made a faint, imperceptible gesture, which read to his eyes: "You've
waited a whole year."

"Yes, I know," he returned, still constrained by the necessity of
muffling his voice, of perpetually measuring the distance between
themselves and the window. "I know what you might say--don't you suppose
I've said it to myself a million times? But I didn't know--I couldn't
imagine----"

She interrupted him with a rapid movement. "What do you know now?"

"What you promised Langhope----"

She turned her startled eyes on him, and he saw the blood run flame-like
under her skin. "But _he_ promised not to speak!" she cried.

"He hasn't--to me. But such things make themselves known. Should you
have been content to go on in that way forever?"

She raised her head and her eyes rested in his. "If you were," she
answered simply.

"Justine!"

Again she checked him with a silencing motion. "Please tell me just what
has happened."

"Not now--there's too much else to say. And nothing matters except that
I'm with you."

"But Mr. Langhope----"

"He asks you to come. You're to see Cicely to-morrow."

Her lower lip trembled a little, and a tear flowed over and hung on her
lashes.

"But what does all that matter now? We're together after this horrible
year," he insisted.

She looked at him again. "But what is really changed?"

"Everything--everything! Not changed, I mean--just gone back."

"To where...we were...before?" she whispered; and he whispered back: "To
where we were before."

There was a