ou're the only person who does what they say they're
going to do?"

"What--not--not a doctor, Francey?"

"Not yet. I'm two years behind you. This will be my first year in the
Wards. Next year you will be full-blown--perhaps on the staff--and I
shall have to trot behind you and believe everything you say." She
smiled rather gravely. "You will have got the big stick, after all."

He looked up at her, holding on to the spiked railing that guarded the
yawning area. But he had a queer feeling that he had let go of
everything else that he had held fast to--that he was gliding down-bill
in a reckless abandonment to an unknown feeling. He knew too little of
emotion to know that he was happy.

"Why--I shall be there too. I'll be on a surgical post--dresser for old
Rogers. And he's going to take me on his private rounds."

It was not what he had meant to say. He had meant to say, "We shall see
each other." Perhaps she guessed. Her hand rested on his, warm and
strong and kind, as though nothing had changed at all. Because they were
grown up she did not hold back in a conventional reserve. If only he
could have cried she would have sat down on the steps beside him, and put
her arm about him, and comforted him.

"And I want to meet Christine," she said.

He nodded.

"Rather."

"And it's been fine--our meeting again. But didn't you always know it
would happen?"

"I believe I did. Yes, I did. I used to imagine----"

And then he knew and saw that she knew too. He saw it in the sudden
darkening of her steady eyes, in the perplexity of her drawn brows. He
felt it in her hand that scarcely moved, as though even now it would not
shrink from whatever was the truth. It came and went like a flare of
fire across the storm. And when it had gone, they could not believe that
it had ever been. They were both shaken with astonishment. And yet,
hadn't they always known?

"Good-night, Robert Stonehouse."

"Good-night."

But he could not move. He watched the blank door open, and her slender
shadow stand out for a moment against the yellow gas-light of the hall.
She did not look back. Perhaps she too was spell-bound. The door closed
with an odd sound as though the house had clicked its tongue in
good-natured amusement.

"Now you see how it happens, Robert Stonehouse!"

At any rate, the spell was broken. Hugging his parcel dangerously close
he raced back to the shelter of the trees and waited. High over h