e down, to find Georgiana standing with her arms about
a white pillar, her face looking off toward the garden. The lamplight
from the central hall, whose rear door opened upon the porch, gleamed
rosily out upon her.

Mr. Jefferson came out and stood beside her. "I came back," he said,
"just to offer you my friendship in any time of need. I couldn't go away
without doing that; I couldn't be content merely to write it back to
you. I have lived here in your home with your father and yourself until
it has come to seem almost as if I belonged here. But my work calls me;
I must go back to it. The book must wait, to be finished in spare
moments as other books have been finished. I thought I could give myself
this year away from my profession to accomplish this task and perhaps to
lay in fresh stores of energy. But I find I can't be easy in mind to do
this longer. So I am going back."

After an instant Georgiana answered, without turning her eyes away from
the garden: "You are a very fortunate person."

"To have work that calls so loudly? I am sure of that. And it is work
which absorbs me to the full. But I shall always have time to give to
you or to your father, if in any way I can ever be of service to you. I
have no family to call upon me for any attention whatever; I have no
near relative except the married sister who lives abroad, as I have told
you. By the way, Allison has bidden me more than once to thank you for
her for taking such good care of me. You know her by her picture, if you
have noticed it--the one on my bureau."

Georgiana nodded. She did not trust her lips, which were suddenly
trembling, to tell him that though he had often spoken of this sister he
had never mentioned the fact that the photograph on his bureau was hers.
But--what did it matter now? It was far better that she had not known,
that she had had this restraint upon her imagination to keep her from
ever letting herself go. It was far better---- But he was speaking; she
must listen.

"While I have been in this house I have felt," he was saying, "as if I
had a real home. It is hard to give that up. Association with your
father has become much to me. I can't tell you what he has given me out
of his stores of wisdom and experience. And you--have been very good to
me; I shall not forget it."

"I have done nothing," murmured Georgiana with dry lips, "except feed
you and dust your room. You might have had such service anywhere."

"Might I? I doubt