the foot of the staircase, looking up at the descending guest. The
guest, naturally enough, paused, four stairs up, looking down. The
light, from a quaint lantern hood of wrought iron and crystal hanging
above the newel post, shone full upon the dark head and vivid face
above the demure gray frock with its nunlike broad collar and cuffs of
thin white.

The man below looked for a full minute without speaking, but Georgiana
could not have told what expression was upon his face or whether he
smiled. She knew that at the end of that long look he stretched one arm
toward her, and that obeying the gesture which was all but a command she
came on down those four remaining steps. Jefferson Craig led her into
the library, where a great fire sparkled and leaped and filled the room,
otherwise sombre with books, full of welcoming cheer. He closed the
door, then led her to the hearth.

"Where shall we begin?" he said, in that low but very distinct voice she
so well remembered. "Where we left off?"

"I'm not," answered Georgiana, looking away from him into the fire,
whose light flashed in her eyes less disconcertingly than that which she
somehow knew leaped in his, "sure where we left off."

"Aren't you? I am. We left off where we had each seen, for just one
instant, into the other's heart. And having seen there was no
forgetting--no?--Georgiana?"

She shook her head.

"It was good of you to come to me," he said very gently. Her hand was
still held fast in his. "I did my best to have it the other way--the
usual way. There seemed a fate against it. I could have written, but
somehow I didn't want to. I preferred to wait--with the memory of your
face always before me, till I could see it again. And now that I see
it--bent down--and turned away"--he laughed a low laugh of content--"oh,
look up, Georgiana! Surely you're not afraid now. You know I've been
loving you ever since I saw you first, in spite of thinking I must not,
because of the one I understood you belonged to----"

She looked up then out of sheer astonishment. "Oh, no, not since you saw
me first," she disputed. "It couldn't be--and I thinking all the
while----" She stopped in confusion at the revelation she might be
making.

But he caught her up. "You thinking all the while--what? Tell me!"

"I thought--you hadn't the least interest in me."

"Did you care whether I had or not?"

"I--tried not to care," confessed Georgiana naively. She smiled, a
sparkling little