ollow dismissed
her lover peremptorily, with a last daring kiss beneath the
street-light, and tripped into the house.

It all came over her as soon as the tall figure rose from the
uncomfortable corner sofa: she knew what she had done and she was filled
with real concern for the Other One.

"Edgar!" she cried. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Some time," Mrs. Ridge observed with reproof.

"Since four forty-five," Duncan admitted, and added with a touch of
sentiment. "I came fifteen minutes before the time."

Milly cast a fleeting glance backward over what had happened to her
since four forty-five!

"But it doesn't matter now," he said with intention, "all the waiting!"

Mrs. Ridge discreetly withdrew at this point.

"I'm so glad to see you," Milly began lamely. "Do sit down."

"I've been sitting a long time," Edgar Duncan remarked, patiently
reseating himself on the stiff sofa.

"I'm so sorry!"

"Did you forget?"

"Yes, I forgot all about it," Milly admitted bluntly. "You see so much
has happened since--"

"Then you didn't get my letters?" he pressed on eagerly, ignoring
Milly's last words.

"Oh, yes, I got all your letters," she said hastily, remembering that
she had not found time or heart to open the last bulky three, which lay
upstairs on her dressing-table. "Beautiful letters they were," she added
sentimentally and irrelevantly, thinking, "What letters Jack will
write!"

It is useless to follow this painful scene in further detail. Timid as
Edgar Duncan was by nature he was man enough to strike for what he
wanted when he had his chance,--as he had struck manfully in those bulky
letters. And he repeated their message now in simple words.

"Milly, will you go back with me?... I've waited for you all my life."

Touched by the pathos of this genuine feeling, Milly's eyes filled with
tears and she stammered,--

"Oh, I can't--I really can't!"

"Why not?"

(She would have been quite willing to make the journey with him, if she
might have flown straightway back to the arms of her artist lover!)

"You see--it's different--I can't--" Milly could not bring herself to
deal the blow. It seemed too absurd to state baldly that in twelve days
a man had come into her life, whom she had never set eyes on thirteen
days before, but who nevertheless had made it impossible for her to do
what before that time she had looked forward to with serene content.
Such things happened in books, but were ridiculous to sa