test joy, that I may be able to help you . . . . Didn't you need
me, just a little?"

"Now that I have you, I am unable to think of the emptiness which might
have been. You came to me, like Beatrice, when I had lost my way in the
darkness of the wood. And like Beatrice, you showed me the path, and
hell and heaven."

"Oh, you would have found the path without me. I cannot claim that.
I saw from the first that you were destined to find it. And, unlike
Beatrice, I too was lost, and it was you who lifted me up. You mustn't
idealize me." . . . She stood up. "Come!" she said. He too stood,
gazing at her, and she lifted her hands to his shoulders . . . . They
moved out from under the tree and walked for a while in silence across
the dew-drenched grass, towards Park Street. The moon, which had ridden
over a great space in the sky, hung red above the blackness of the forest
to the west.

"Do you remember when we were here together, the day I met Mr. Bentley?
And you never would have spoken!"

"How could I, Alison?" he asked.

"No, you couldn't. And yet--you would have let me go!"

He put his arm in hers, and drew her towards him.

"I must talk to your father," he said, "some day--soon. I ought to tell
him--of our intentions. We cannot go on like this."

"No," she agreed, "I realize it. And I cannot stay, much longer, in Park
Street. I must go back to New York, until you send for me, dear. And
there are things I must do. Do you know, even though I antagonize him
so--my father, I mean--even though he suspects and bitterly resents any
interest in you, my affection for you, and that I have lingered because
of you, I believe, in his way, he has liked to have me here."

"I can understand it," Hodder said.

"It's because you are bigger than I, although he has quarrelled with you
so bitterly. I don't know what definite wrongs he has done to other
persons. I don't wish to know. I don't ask you to tell me what passed
between you that night. Once you said that you had an affection for him
--that he was lonely. He is lonely. In these last weeks, in spite of
his anger, I can see that he suffers terribly. It is a tragedy, because
he will never give in."

"It is a tragedy." Hodder's tone was agitated.

"I wonder if he realizes a little" she began, and paused. "Now that
Preston has come home--"

"Your brother?" Hodder exclaimed.

"Yes. I forgot to tell you. I don't know why he came," she faltered.
"I suppose he has got into so