ettled down and confined itself to the financial and editorial
policies of the paper, Milly asking a hundred eager and shrewd
questions, now and again proffering some tentative counsel or caution.
Impersonal though it seemed, through it Hal felt a growing tensity of
intercourse; a sense of pregnant and perilous intimacy drawing them
together.

"Since you're taking such an interest, I might get you to help Mr. Ellis
run the paper when I go away," he suggested jocularly.

"You're not going away?" The query came in a sort of gasp.

"Next week."

"For long?" Her hand, as if in protest against the dreaded answer, went
out to the arm of his chair. His own met and covered it reassuringly.

"Not very. It's the new press."

"We're going to have a new press?"

"Hadn't you heard? You seem to know so much about the office. We're
going to build up the basement and set the press just inside the front
wall and then cut a big window through so that the world and his wife
can see the 'Clarion' in the very act of making them better."

Both fell silent. Their hands still clung. Their eyes were fixed upon
the fire. Suddenly a log, half-consumed, crashed down, sending abroad a
shower of sparks. The girl darted swiftly up to stamp out a tiny flame
at her feet. Standing, she half turned toward Hal.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To New York."

"Take me with you."

So quietly had the crisis come that he scarcely realized it. For a
measured space of heart-beats he gazed into the fireplace. As he stared,
she slipped to the arm of his chair. He felt the alluring warmth of her
body against his shoulder. Then he would have turned to search her eyes,
but, divining him, she denied, pressing her cheek close against his own.

"No; no! Don't look at me," she breathed.

"You don't know what you mean," he whispered.

"I do! I'm not a child. Take me with you."

"It means ruin for you."

"Ruin! That's a word! Words don't frighten me."

"They do me. They're the most terrible things in the world."

She laughed at that. "Is it the word you're afraid of, or is it me?"
she challenged. "I'm not asking you anything. I don't want you to marry
me. Oh!" she cried with a sinking break of the voice, "do you think I'm
_bad_?"

Freeing himself, he caught her face between his hands.

"Are you--have you been 'bad,' as you call it?"

"I don't blame you for asking--after what I've said. But I haven't."

"And now?"

"Now, I care. I never c