eer to come and
see her at his first opportunity. That was all that was said, and he
pondered over it deeply. What did she wish to say to him? She was
still such an unknown quantity,--and never so much as now in the light
of the day before,--that he could not guess. Did she desire to give
him his dismissal on a definite, well-understood basis? To take
advantage of her sex and further humiliate him? To tell him what she
thought of him in coolly considered, cold-measured terms? Or was she
penitently striving to make amends for the unmerited harshness she had
dealt him? There was neither contrition nor anger in the note, no
clew, nothing save a formally worded desire to see him.

So it was in a rather unsettled and curious frame of mind that he
walked in upon her as the last hour of the morning drew to a close. He
was neither on his dignity nor off, his attitude being strictly
non-committal against the moment she should disclose hers. But without
beating about the bush, in that way of hers which he had come already
to admire, she at once showed her colors and came frankly forward to
him. The first glimpse of her face told him, the first feel of her
hand, before she had said a word, told him that all was well.

"I am glad you have come," she began. "I could not be at peace with
myself until I had seen you and told you how sorry I am for yesterday,
and how deeply ashamed I--"

"There, there. It's not so bad as all that." They were still
standing, and he took a step nearer to her. "I assure you I can
appreciate your side of it; and though, looking at it theoretically, it
was the highest conduct, demanding the fullest meed of praise, still,
in all frankness, there is much to--to--"

"Yes."

"Much to deplore in it from the social stand-point. And unhappily, we
cannot leave the social stand-point out of our reckoning. But so far
as I may speak for myself, you have done nothing to feel sorry for or
be ashamed of."

"It is kind of you," she cried, graciously. "Only it is not true, and
you know it is not true. You know that you acted for the best; you
know that I hurt you, insulted you; you know that I behaved like a
fish-wife, and you do know that I disgusted you--"

"No, no!" He raised his hand as though to ward from her the blows she
dealt herself.

"But yes, yes. And I have all reason in the world to be ashamed. I
can only say this in defence: the woman had affected me deeply--so
deeply that I w