“Yes; they were married in St. Joe, and she went on the stage with him. Jimmie McGinnis is with them, too. They call themselves the three Le Ducs, I believe. And Mrs. Craig lost her position. The Le Ducs are in Chicago now, at a cheap theatre, and Mrs. Craig is living with them; but they refused to take George, too. They seem to grudge her even the little they do. So George was turned out into the street and got into bad company, and now he's in jail. I don't think it's as bad as it sounds. His companions are a good deal older, and Mr. Babcock, who has been looking after him, says he will undoubtedly be released. I almost wrote you about it a little while ago.”

“I wish you had.”

“Well,” she hesitated, “I didn't know—it has been so long.” She looked up. “To tell the truth, I didn't know whether you were still interested.”

He rose and went over to the mantel. The fire was low and he heaped it up with the largest sticks in the wood-box; then dropping on one knee he took up the bellows and had it roaring in a moment.

“I like a big fire,” he said, over his shoulder.

She nodded and let her eyes rest on him as he worked over the fire. Yes, he was a good deal older; his frame had filled out and settled; and in his manner, too, some of the rough edges had been rubbed down—a fact she whimsically regretted. She got up now and pushed the big chair up beside the fire and sat across from him. For a time they said nothing—he sitting on a stool at one side of the hearth, she in the chair at the other; he applying the bellows in a moody, desultory way, she leaning back watching first him and then the leaping flames. Finally he said, letting the bellows swing between his knees, still keeping his eyes on the fire:

“Margaret!”

She started a little and a quick, almost shy glance shot from her eyes; but he seemed wholly unconscious that he had never directly called her by that name before. He swung the bellows slowly to and fro like a pendulum.

“What made you think I wouldn't be interested?”

“Why—I don't know that I meant exactly that———”

He went on, still without looking up: “Was it anything in what I wrote before?”

Yes, there had been some writing before—when he was first at Wauchung, and she, eager for her little protÉgÉ in the city, had kept him informed of George's progress and had relied on his counsel. And now, as he brought that correspondence up in his mind, and remembered how it had bothered him, how he had avoided every personal reference and had made it easy always for her to stop when she chose, and how she finally had stopped—when he had these facts before him, he was thankful that the fire could partly explain his colour.

“I'm afraid I wasn't a very satisfactory correspondent,” he added, “but those weren't very satisfactory days. I was sailing pretty close then—I had some college expenses to pay back, and I was learning the business, and altogether I didn't see much fun in living. If you have thought of me since as the same sort of fellow I was then, I don't blame you for not wanting to write.”

He looked up at her for a reply; but she only smiled a little and slowly shook her head.

And so they talked on, these two, for a long time; they drifted on into a dreamy, personal mood—into a land where only common interests could get a footing, where there was no clock—nothing but the red flames, and the dim rows of books, and the hushed house, and themselves. They forgot to-night those three years of divergence—forgot that there was one set of facts centring about the Michigan lumberman and another about Margaret. To Halloran all of life had slipped away except that dreamy figure in the Morris chair, with the late red glow of the fire on her face and on her hair. Her eyes were half closed, and she turned them toward him now and then without moving her head. A smile hovered on her face—now on her lips, if he spoke to her—at other times flitting about her eyes. Her hands lay motionless on the arms of 'the chair. To both of them it was a rich glad time, so glad that it could best be explained by silence, tempered only at intervals by low voices; so rich that it poured its warmth into their very souls and quieted them, and gave them to know that such high moments are rare, that they must be conserved and guarded, must be lived through reverently.

He looked at her shyly at first, with stolen glances, until in some silent way she gave him her permission; and then he looked long, not from his eyes alone, but from the new self within him which had risen almost to equality with that other self of hers. He knew this now—knew it to be gloriously true; and he felt a defiance of all life, of all the pressing facts and things that had crowded into his existence, a defiance, a consciousness of self that thrilled him with its reality. For the first time in his life he knew that those solid things were not real. And his soul was awed and humbled.

And she looked at him—shyly always, yet conscious of what she was too honest to deny. And the occasional pressure of her sensitive mouth, the twitch of her eyelid as the light wavered over it, were not needed to show him that she, too, was wholly given up to the reality—that her life was gathered up to-night, with his, into one full hour of happiness.

Into this Arden came the distant whistle of a locomotive. Her eyes sought his, and at the expression they found there she shook her head.

“That is going the other way,” she said softly.

“I'm sorry”—he looked at his watch—“I have just time for the last train.”

He rose and stood a moment looking at the fire. Then he came over and leaned on the back of the chair and reached down and raised her hand in his. She almost shivered at his touch, but he held it firmly; and after a moment, in which the blood seemed to leave her face, her fingers closed on his and clasped them tightly.

And then he forgot all about the last train. He knew that the impulse that he had feared so long had at last mastered him, and he was wildly, exultantly glad. He slipped down on the broad arm of the chair and held her hand on his knee, and looked down at her hair; whilst she, still with that occasional compression of the lips, gazed into the fire. For her, too, everything had slipped into oblivion—everything but the red, red glow of the dying fire and the clasp of his hand in hers and the touch of his other hand on her hair. There was nothing else in the world for her to-night; and her happiness was so poignant that she felt herself swept blindly along with him, past all the obstacles of convention, of small misunderstandings, of outside interests, on up to heights that had never before during her quiet lifetime even entered her imagination. At moments her fingers would tighten on his and strange, happy tears would fill her eyes, to be kept back only by an effort. Once she could not keep them back; and he looked down and saw them on her cheek, and she did not care. Tears were trivial, now that her soul was laid bare to him.

At another time she spoke so softly that he could not hear, and he bent down his head.

“You are not going to try to get back to the city?” she repeated, in a voice from which all strength, all the body had gone.

“No—I'm going down to the hotel.”

Her clasp tightened again by way of reply.

And so the wild, sweet message came to this man and this young woman. It told them how deeply those earlier years of friendship had entered their natures; it let them know how much stronger it was than will or habit—how it had chained their two lives so firmly together that only a few moments had been needed to-night to show it plainly to them both. A look of the eye, a tone in the voice, and it was done. From that moment their lives had changed; and where-ever the new current might lead them, whatever might be waiting in the dim, luminous years beyond, the new fact must control their thoughts. The old days were gone; the new had begun.

Was it strange that he should think of this, that the meaning of it all should flash through his mind; whilst she, with her sensitive nature wholly bound up in this moment, should be thinking of nothing, should be conscious of nothing, save that he was here? Was this strange? Her eyes were still fixed on the embers; she seemed unable to raise them to his. In all her life she had never before given up. Her impulses had never before swept her reason from its seat and held her, trembling and amazed, in their grip. It was new and wonderful to her.

“Margaret,” he said, in the low voice that expressed the most, “dare I look at my watch?” She smiled and tightly held his hand.

“No?”

She shook her head.

He caught up a lock of her hair and held it against the light. It glistened like fine-spun gold. He leaned down and pressed it to his lips; and again he felt that tightening of her fingers, that slight shiver passing through her. He bent forward and saw that the tears had escaped again. “Margaret,” he whispered, “look up.”

Her eyes lifted a little, then dropped. He waited and then whispered again, “Look up, dear.” Slowly she raised them until they met his fairly, and their two souls were gazing straight, each to each. Her fingers tightened and tightened; she was trembling. And at last he caught her wildly with both his arms and drew her against him and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth. And her tears fell without restraint.

“Dear girl,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, “Dear girl, you love me—I know you love me. I have waited—it is a long while that I have waited—but all the waiting is over now. Tell me that it is all over—that we are going to begin our lives—our life—new again. Tell me that we are going to be happy.”

There was a moment during which she struggled to free herself. “Don't, oh, don't!” she cried brokenly. “Please stop, John!” And he, hurt and wondering, released her, and stood up, watching her stupidly as she fell back in the chair and covered her eyes.

Poor Halloran! He had been supposing that he understood her—that he really could see a little way into that complex nature. And the discovery that he was still far on the outside of her personality brought a cruel shock. He could not know that while his thoughts had rambled ahead, constructing their life, hers had been absorbed in the happiness of that one golden hour. He could not understand how his words, and the realization of what this evening meant to them both, had burst upon her with a force that frightened her. He could not be expected to know what a struggle had come with this first open thought of giving herself up to a man—what questions it raised, what problems of wholly reconstructing a life; how the great question loomed before her in dimensions that seemed almost tragic. He could not understand this; and so, when he finally spoke, it was with a touch of quiet dignity:

“Margaret,” he said, “I have asked you to be my wife.” There was a more and more appealing quality in his voice as he went on. “I have asked you to be my wife. Can't you give me your answer?”

She shook her head without uncovering her eyes.

“Shall I come for it to-morrow, then, Margaret? I think I have told you everything. You know that I love you. I can't live without you—I dread even to think of waiting. It means so much to me, Margaret, so very much, that I don't know——”

He paused, for his voice was beginning to shake a little. Still she was silent.

“Have you”—it was getting difficult to speak—“have you nothing to tell me?”

“Oh, John,” she managed to say, “I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”

“Is—is that all, Margaret?”

“You must not come to-morrow—I can't let you.”

“A week, then, Margaret?—a—a month?”

“I don't know—you must not stay.”

He waited a little, then walked slowly to the hall. When he had his coat nearly on she came to the doorway. He waited again, hat in hand.

“Good—good-night,” she said.

“Is that———”

She shook her head nervously, hurriedly, and he opened the door and went out.

And when he had gone, when his last step had died away in the still air, she sank down on the stairs and sobbed, trembling in the power of this passion. What had she done! What had she done! Her thoughts ranged madly. She thought of the three years of divergence; of his habits, of hers; of all the things, great and trivial, that bore on the question; she tried to remember what had happened this night, and could not. She only knew that this strange power had mastered her; and she was afraid of it and of him.