ed
the door, and blindly sought the handle. But before she found it he
spoke in a tone that had subtly altered:

"Doris!"

Her hands fell. She stood suddenly still, listening.

"Come here!" he said.

He crossed the room and reached her.

"Look at me!" he said.

She refused for a little, trembling all over. Then suddenly as he waited
she threw back her head and met his eyes. She was sobbing like a child
that has been hurt.

He bent towards her, looking closely, closely into her quivering face.

"So," he said, "it was a lie, was it? But, my own girl, how was I to
know? Why on earth didn't you say so before?"

She broke into a laugh that had in it the sound of tears.

"How could I? You never asked. How could I?"

"Shall I ask you now?" he said.

She stretched up her arms and clasped his neck.

"No," she whispered back. "Take me--take everything--for granted. It's
the only way, if you want to turn a heartless little flirt like me
into--into a virtuous and amiable wife!"

And so, clinging to him, her lips met his in the first kiss that had
ever passed between them.

Those Who Wait[1]

A faint draught from the hills found its way through the wide-flung door
as the sun went down. It fluttered the papers on the table, and stirred
a cartoon upon the wall with a dry rustling as of wind in corn.

The man who sat at the table turned his face as it were mechanically
towards that blessed breath from the snows. His chin was propped on his
hand. He seemed to be waiting.

The light failed very quickly, and he presently reached out and drew a
reading-lamp towards him. The flame he kindled flickered upward,
throwing weird shadows upon his lean, brown face, making the sunken
hollows of his eyes look cavernous.

He turned the light away so that it streamed upon the open doorway. Then
he resumed his former position of sphinx-like waiting, his chin upon his
hand.

Half an hour passed. The day was dead. Beyond the radius of the lamp
there hung a pall of thick darkness--a fearful, clinging darkness that
seemed to wrap the whole earth. The heat was intense, unstirred by any
breeze. Only now and then the cartoon on the wall moved as if at the
touch of ghostly fingers, and each time there came that mocking whisper
that was like wind in corn.

At length there sounded through the night the dull throbbing of a
horse's feet, and the man who sat waiting raised his head. A gleam of
expectancy shone in his sombre eyes