d week drew to a close and another desolate Sunday
confronted him, Daylight resolved to speak, office or no office. And as
was his nature, he went simply and directly to the point She had
finished her work with him, and was gathering her note pad and pencils
together to depart, when he said:--

"Oh, one thing more, Miss Mason, and I hope you won't mind my being
frank and straight out. You've struck me right along as a
sensible-minded girl, and I don't think you'll take offence at what I'm
going to say. You know how long you've been in the office--it's years,
now, several of them, anyway; and you know I've always been straight
and aboveboard with you. I've never what you call--presumed. Because
you were in my office I've tried to be more careful than if--if you
wasn't in my office--you understand. But just the same, it don't make
me any the less human. I'm a lonely sort of a fellow--don't take that
as a bid for kindness. What I mean by it is to try and tell you just
how much those two rides with you have meant. And now I hope you won't
mind my just asking why you haven't been out riding the last two
Sundays?"

He came to a stop and waited, feeling very warm and awkward, the
perspiration starting in tiny beads on his forehead. She did not speak
immediately, and he stepped across the room and raised the window
higher.

"I have been riding," she answered; "in other directions."

"But why...?" He failed somehow to complete the question. "Go ahead
and be frank with me," he urged. "Just as frank as I am with you. Why
didn't you ride in the Piedmont hills? I hunted for you everywhere.

"And that is just why." She smiled, and looked him straight in the
eyes for a moment, then dropped her own. "Surely, you understand, Mr.
Harnish."

He shook his head glumly.

"I do, and I don't. I ain't used to city ways by a long shot. There's
things one mustn't do, which I don't mind as long as I don't want to do
them."

"But when you do?" she asked quickly.

"Then I do them." His lips had drawn firmly with this affirmation of
will, but the next instant he was amending the statement "That is, I
mostly do. But what gets me is the things you mustn't do when they're
not wrong and they won't hurt anybody--this riding, for instance."

She played nervously with a pencil for a time, as if debating her
reply, while he waited patiently.

"This riding," she began; "it's not what they call the right thing. I
leave it to yo