regarded him with a mingled anxiety and
eagerness. Was she afraid of something? Did she fear that--she knew not
quite what, but it had to do with a long ago?

"It was time you hit out, Nett," she said, half shyly. "You're more
patient than you used to be, but you're surer. My, that was a twist you
gave him, Nett. Aren't you glad to see me?" she added, hastily and with an
effort to hide her agitation.

He reached out and took her hand with a strange shyness and a
self-consciousness which was alien to his nature. The touch of her hand
thrilled him. Their eyes met. She dropped hers. Then he gathered himself
together. "Glad to see you? Of course, of course, I'm glad. You stunned
me, Jo. Why, do you know where you are? You're a thousand miles from home.
I can't get it through my head, not really. What brings you here? It's ten
years--ten years since I saw you, and you were only fifteen, but a fifteen
that was as good as twenty."

He scanned her face closely. "What's that scar on your forehead, Jo? You
hadn't that--then."

"I ran up against something," she said, evasively, her eyes glittering,
"and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?"

"No, you'd never notice it, if you weren't looking close as I am. You see,
I knew your face so well ten years ago."

He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however, for
he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his face; it
gave light and warmth to its quiet strength--or hardness.

"You were always quizzing," she said, with an attempt at a laugh--"always
trying to find things out. That's why you made them reckon with you out
here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own way;
always were meant to be a success."

She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to keep
things on the surface. "You were meant to succeed--you had to," she
added.

"I've been a failure--a dead failure," he answered, slowly. "So they say.
So they said. You heard them, Jo."

He jerked his head toward the open window.

"Oh, those drunken fools!" she exclaimed, indignantly, and her face
hardened. "How I hate drink! It spoils everything."

There was silence for a moment. They were both thinking of the same
thing--_of the same man_. He repeated a question.

"What brings you out here, Jo?" he asked, gently.

"Dorland," she answered, her face setting into determination and anxiety.

His face became pinched. "Dorl!" he sai