perhaps she would not have done as
she had done. But it was done now, past recall.

"I was away. I found Hurst Dormer irksome and lonely. Lady Linden came
over; she invited me to stay at Cornbridge," he explained. "So I went,
and no letters were forwarded. Yours came within a few hours of my
leaving. I hope you understand that if I had had it--"

"You would have answered it before, Mr. Alston? Yes, I am glad to feel
the neglect was not intentional."

"Intentional!"

"I--I thought, judging from the manner in which we last parted, and what
you then said to me, that you--you preferred not to--see me again."

"I was hurt then, hurt and bitter. I had no right to say what I said. I
ask you to accept my apologies, Joan."

She started a little at the sound of her name, but did not look at him.

"Perhaps you were right. I have thought it over since. Yes, I think I
acted meanly; it was a thing a woman would do. That is where a woman
fails--in small things--ideas, mean ideas come to her mind, just like
that one. A man would not think such things. Yes, I am ashamed by the
smallness of it. You said 'ungenerous.' I think a better expression
would have been 'mean-spirited.'"

"Joan!"

"But we need not discuss that. We owe one another apologies. Shall we
take it that they are offered and accepted?"

He nodded. "Tea?" he asked, "or coffee?" For the hotel servant had come
for his orders.

"Tea, please," she said; "and--and this time I will not ask for the
bill." The faintest flicker of a smile crossed her lips, and then was
gone, and he thought that in its place a look of weariness and
unhappiness came into the girl's face.

She had sent for him to ask his help. His letter had only reached her
that morning, and when she had read it, she had asked herself, "Shall I
go? Shall I see him?" And had answered "No! It is over; I do not need
his help now. I have someone else to whom I must turn for help, someone
who will give it readily."

And yet she had come--that is the way of women. And because she had
come, she would still ask his help, and not ask it of that other. For
surely he who had brought all this trouble on to her should be the one
to clear her path?

The waiter brought the tea, and Hugh leaned back and watched her as she
poured it out. And, watching her, there came to him a vision of the
bright morning room at Hurst Dormer, a vision of all the old familiar
things he had known since boyhood: and in that vision, tha