return it to me as soon as you can."

Sydney's mouth twitched in appreciation of his audacity.

"I'm afraid I can't very soon," he replied, gravely. "I expect to need
it for a long, long time."

He turned to the mirror and gazed therein at his shock of black hair
rising above the linen, and at the one rueful eye visible below.

"It makes me look rather a fool, doesn't it? But it's awfully sweet of
you to do it, Sydney. I say, Sydney." Suddenly he wheeled about and
seized both her hands. "Is it always going to be this way? Are you
never going to care for me? You know I'd give my life for you. You
never asked me to do anything yet that I didn't do," he hurried on,
yearning for an answer from her, yet knowing well that when she raised
those white lids the eyes would not give him the reply that he wanted.
"Truly, I'll do anything you say, if only you'll care a little, just a
little, dear!"

He drew her to him, and she raised to his her eyes, warm, brown,
swimming in tears. He let fall her hands, realizing that she _knew_--that
she always had known--and feeling how empty were his words when he had
never tried to do for her sake the one thing that might touch her.

Letting fall her hands, he sank speechless upon his knees, and buried
his head in the blue-and-white coverlet of the couch.

With tear-laden eyes Sydney walked to the gate, her hands outstretched
before her, like a blind man feeling his way. Johnny rubbed his nose in
sympathy against her shoulder as she unfastened his chain. It was the
first time in Bob's fond, foolish, generous life that ever he had
allowed Sydney to do for herself anything that he could do for her.

As Johnny carried his mistress down the State Road, and the "bare,
ruined choirs" of the trees became clear to her eyes once again, she
realized that a new pain and a new pity had come into her life--and a
new responsibility.

IV

"Thou Shalt Not Covet thy Neighbor's Wife"

It was fortunate that Johnny needed no guiding hand, for his mistress
was far too absorbed in her thoughts to give him any attention. She did
not see the ranks of gray tree-trunks through which peered glimpses of
blue as the land fell away against the background of the sky; the heavy
bunches of mistletoe in some leafless top failed to attract her
attention; and she was blind to the beauty of the coarse green
pine-needles against the brown masses of the oak-leaves that cling to
the branches all winter to cheat