taken you into my arms---"

"You _did!_ And threw me down among the spruces. You really did
everything that a contrite heart could suggest----"

"Good heavens!" said that rather matter-of-fact young man, "I don't
believe you have forgiven me after all."

"I have -- everything except the handkerchief----"

"Then I'm coming up to complete my penance----"

"I'll lock my door!"

"Would you?"

"I ought to. ... But if you are in great spiritual distress, and if you
really and truly repent, and if you humble desire to expiate your sin by
doing -- penance----" And hesitated: "Do you so desire?"

"Yes, I do."

"Humbly? Contritely?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Say `Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.'"

"Mea maxima culpa," he said so earnestly, looking up into her face that
she bent lower over the sill to see him.

"Let me come up, Eve," he said.

She strove to laugh, gazing down into his shadowy face -- but suddenly
the desire had left her, -- and all her gaiety left her, too, suddenly,
leaving only a still excitement in her breast.

"You - you knew I was just laughing," she said unsteadily. "You
understood, didn't you?"

"I don't know."

After a silence: "I didn't mean you to take me seriously," she said.
She tried to laugh. It was no use. And, as she leaned there on the
sill, her heart frightened her with its loud beating.

"Will you let me come up, Eve?"

No answer.

"Would you lock your door?"

"What do you think I'd do?" she asked tremulously.

"You know; I don't."

"Are you so sure I know what I'd do? I don't think either of us know
our own minds. ... I seem to have lost some of my wits. ... Somehow.
..."

"If you are not going to sleep, let me come up."

"I want you to take a walk down by the pond. And while you're walking
there all by yourself, I want you to think very clearly, very calmly,
and make up your mind whether I should remain awake to-night, or
whether, when you return, I ought to be asleep and -- and my door
bolted."

After a long pause: "All right," he said in a low voice.

* * * * *

V

She saw him walk away -- saw his shadowy, well-built form fade into the
starlit mist.

An almost uncontrollable impulse set her throat and lips quivering with
desire to call to him through the night, "I do love you! I do love you!
Come back quickly, quickly!----"

Fog hung over Star Pond, edging the veranda, rising in frail shreds to
her window. The lapping of the water sounded very n