was bringing her reassurance that neither
was she. The thought that her moment of bitter incredulity had made her
formidable gave her courage to fight even him, of whom she was so much
in awe; gave her courage even to smile, though she grew hot at the first
words he spoke.

"You should not be brave and then run away, you know."

She thought of her rush up the stairs again. "I had to go back to see
Mrs. Britton." (Oh, how she had seen her!)

It seemed to Flora that everything she had been through in the last few
moments was blazoned on her face. But he only looked a little more
gravely at her, though his sardonic eye-brow twitched.

"Ah, I thought you only ran back to hide in your doll's house."

She laughed. Such a picture of her!

"Well, at any rate, now I've come out, what have you to say to me?"

"Now you've come out," he repeated, and looked at her this time with
full gravity, as if he realized finally how far she'd come.

She had taken the chair in the light of the eastern windows. She lay
back in the cushions, her head a little bent, her hands interlaced with
a perfect imitation of quietude. The dull satin of her slender foot was
the only motion about her, but the long, slow rise and fall of her
breath was just too deep-drawn for repose.

He looked down upon her from his height.

"I'm sorry I frightened you last night," he said, "but I'm not sorry I
came, since you've seen me. You needn't have, you know, if you didn't
want to. You could have stayed in the doll's house; and there, I
suppose, you think I should never have found you--or _it_ again?"

He was silent a moment, leaning on the chair opposite, watching her with
knitted forehead, while her apprehension fluttered for what he should do
next. He had done away with all the amenities of meeting and attacked
his point with a directness that took her breath.

"You know what I've come for," he said, "but now I'm here, now that I
see you, I wonder if there's something I haven't reckoned on." He looked
at her earnestly. "If you think I've taken advantage of you--if you say
so--I'll go away, and give you a chance to think it over."

It would have been so easy to have nodded him out, but instead she half
put out her hand toward him. "No; stay."

He gave her a quick look--surprise and approbation at her courage. He
dropped into a chair. "Then tell me about it."

Flora's heart went quick and little. She held herself very still, afraid
in her intense con