s the first time, and the second, and the third? Oh,
dear glove, you know so much, and your partner lies at home in a
drawer knowing nothing. Grizel felt sorry for the other glove. She
whispered to Tommy as a terrible thing, "I think I love this glove
even more than I love you--just a tiny bit more." She could not part
with it. "It told me before you did," she explained, begging him to
give it back to her.

"If you knew what it was to me in those unhappy days, Grizel!"

"I want it to tell me," she whispered.

And did he really love her? Yes, she knew he did, but how could he?

"Oh, Grizel, how could I help it!"

He had to say it, for it is the best answer; but he said it with a
sigh, for it sounded like a quotation.

But how could she love him? I think her reply disappointed him.

"Because you wanted me to," she said, with shining eyes. It is
probably the commonest reason why women love, and perhaps it is the
best; but his vanity was wounded--he had expected to hear that he was
possessed of an irresistible power.

"Not until I wanted you to?"

"I think I always wanted you to want me to," she replied, naively;
"but I would never have let myself love you," she continued very
seriously, "until I was sure you loved me."

"You could have helped it, Grizel!" He drew a blank face.

"I did help it," she answered. "I was always fighting the desire to
love you,--I can see that plainly,--and I always won. I thought God
had made a sort of compact with me that I should always be the kind of
woman I wanted to be if I resisted the desire to love you until you
loved me."

"But you always had the desire!" he said eagerly.

"Always, but it never won. You see, even you did not know of it. You
thought I did not even like you! That was why you wanted to prevent
Corp's telling me about the glove, was it not? You thought it would
pain me only! Do you remember what you said: 'It is to save you acute
pain that I want to see Corp first'?"

All that seemed so long ago to Tommy now!

"How could you think it would be a pain to me!" she cried.

"You concealed your feelings so well, Grizel."

"Did I not?" she said joyously. "Oh, I wanted to be so careful, and I
was careful. That is why I am so happy now." Her face was glowing. She
was full of odd, delightful fancies to-night. She kissed her hand to
the gloaming; no, not to the gloaming--to the little hunted, anxious
girl she had been.

[Illustration: "She is standing behind tha