asion of Willits' second visit he had begun to realise his danger and
the professor never guessed how nearly he had persuaded him to leave
Coombe. Some deep instinct was urging flight, but the impulse had come
just a little bit too late. He could not go, because he wanted so very
much to stay.

After Willits' departure he had deliberately tested himself. For five
days he did not try to see Esther and upon the sixth he realised finally
that seeing Esther was the only thing that mattered. Then had come the
short interview under the elm tree--an interview which had shown him a
new Esther, demure, adorable, with eyes which refused to look at him. He
had come away from that meeting with a new pulse beating in his heart.

To doubt was no longer possible. He loved her.

But she? Lovers are proverbially modest, but their modesty is fear
disguised. They hope so much that they fear to hope at all; it seemed
impossible to Callandar that Esther should not love him and yet it
seemed impossible that she should. Only one thing emerged clearly from
the chaos--the immediate necessity of finding out.

"Why don't you ask her?" demanded Common Sense in that wearily patient
way with which Common Sense meets the vagaries of lovers.

"But it is so soon," objected Caution, while Fear, aroused, whispered,
"Be careful. Give her time." Even Mrs. Grundy made herself heard with
her usual references to what people, represented by Mrs. Sykes, might
say, adding scornfully, "Why, you haven't met the girl's mother yet.
Don't make a fool of yourself, please."

But over all these voices rose another voice, insistent, demanding to be
satisfied. It might be premature, it might be all that was rash and
foolish but he simply had to find out at once whether or not Esther
Coombe loved him.

His final decision came one morning when driving slowly home from an all
night fight with death. He was tired but exultant, because he had won
the fight, and life, which slips so easily away, seemed doubly precious.
After all, he was no longer a boy. If life still held something
beautiful for him, why should he wait? He had waited so many
years already.

Guiding the car with one hand, he slipped the other into his pocket and
opening a small locket which he found there, gazed long and earnestly at
the picture it contained. The face it showed him was a young face, fair,
rounded, childish. Dear Molly! his thought of her was infinitely tender.
He loved her all the more