ood rights." It never
occurred to Sylvia that Richard also was growing older, and that he
was, moreover, a few years older than she. She thought of him as an
immortal youth; his face was the same to her as when she had first
seen it.

When it came before a subtler vision than her bodily one, there in
the darkness and loneliness of this last Sunday night, it wore the
beauty and innocent freshness of a child. If Richard Alger could have
seen his own face as the woman who loved him saw it, he could never
have doubted his own immortality.

"There he came, an' the stone was up, an' he had to go away," moaned
Sylvia, catching her breath softly. Many a time she had pitied
Richard because he had not the little womanly care which men need;
she had worried lest his stockings were not darned, and his food not
properly cooked; but to-night she had another and strange anxiety.
She worried lest she herself had hurt him and sent him home with a
heavy heart.

Sylvia had gone about for the last few days with her delicate face as
irresponsibly calm as a sweet-pea; nobody had dreamed of the turmoil
in her heart. On the Wednesday night before she had nearly reached
the climax of her wishes. Richard had come, departing from his usual
custom--he had never called except on Sunday before--and remained
later. It was ten o'clock before he went home. He had been very
silent all the evening, and had sat soberly in the great best
rocking-chair, which was, in a way, his throne of state, with Sylvia
on the sofa on his right. Many a time she had dreamed that he came
over there and sat down beside her, and that night it had come to
pass.

Just before ten o'clock he had arisen hesitatingly; she thought it
was to take leave, but she sat waiting and trembling. They had sat in
the twilight and young moonlight all the evening. Richard had checked
her when she attempted to light a candle. That had somehow made the
evening seem strange, and freighted with consequences; and besides
the white light of the moon, full of mystic influence, there was
something subtler and more magnetic, which could sway more than the
tides, even the passions of the human heart, present, and they both
felt it.

Neither had said much, and they had been sitting there nearly two
hours, when Richard had arisen, and moved curiously, rather as if he
was drawn than walked of his own volition, over to the sofa. He sank
down upon it with a little cough. Sylvia moved away a little wit