t it
_in_ you, Roy, to give me ... all I can feel you giving me now. As for
me--well, that's for you to find out! Of course, the minute I'd done it,
I was miserable: furious with myself. For I couldn't stop ... loving
you. My heart had no shame, in spite of my important pride. Only ...
after _she_ went--and Mother told me all--something in me seemed to know
her free spirit would be near you--and bring you back to me ... somehow:
_till_ ... your news came. And--_look_! The Bracelet! I hesitated a long
time. If you hadn't been engaged, I'm not sure if I would have ventured.
But I did--and you're here. It's all been her doing, Roy, first and
last. Don't let's spoil any of it with regrets."

He could only bow his head upon her hand in mute adoration. The courage,
the crystal-clear wisdom of her--his eager Tara, who could never wait
five minutes for the particular sweet or the particular tale she craved.
Yet she had waited five years for him--and counted it a little thing. Of
a truth his mother had builded better than she knew.

"You see," Tara added softly. "There wouldn't have been ... the deeps.
And it takes the deeps to make you realise the heights----"

* * * * *

Lost in one another--in the wonder of mutual self-revealing--they were
lost, no less, to impertinent trivialities of place and time; till the
very trivial pang of hunger reminded Roy that he had been wandering for
hours without food.

"Tara--it's a come down--but I'm fairly starving!" he cried
suddenly--and consulted his watch. "Nine o'clock. The wretch I am! Dad's
final remark was, 'Sure as a gun, you'll be late for breakfast.' And it
seemed impossible. But sure as guns we _will_ be! Put on the precious
hat. We must jolly well run for it."

And taking hands, like a pair of children, they ran....

CHAPTER THE LAST.

"Who shall allot the praise, and guess
What part is yours--what part is ours?"
--ALICE MEYNELL.

"Perhaps a dreamer's day will come ... when judgment will be
pronounced on all the wise men, who always prophesied evil--and
were always right."--JOHAN BOJER.

Two hours later Roy and his father sat together in the cushioned window
seat of the studio, smoking industriously; not troubling to say
much--though there was much to be said--because the mist of constraint
that brooded between them yesterday had been blown clean away by Roy's
news.

If i