e was, as of old, sitting, as was his wont, on the corner
of the table, his two strong hands firmly grasping Elsa's wrists. She
held him a little at arm's length, frightened still at the suddenness of
his apparition here--on this day--the day of her farewell feast.

When first he drew her to him, she had breathed his name--softly panting
with excitement, "Andor!"

The blood had rushed to her cheeks, and then flowed back to her heart,
leaving her pale as a lily. She did not look at him any more after that
first glance, but held her head bent, and her eyes fixed to the ground.
Slowly the tears trickled down her cheeks one by one.

But he did not take his glowing, laughing eyes away from her, though he,
too, was speechless after that first cry of joy:

"Elsa!"

He held her wrists and in a happy, irresponsible way was swinging her
arms out and in, all the while that he was drinking in the joy of seeing
her again.

Surely she was even more beautiful than she had ever been before. He did
not notice that she was dressed as for a feast, he did not heed that she
held her head down and that heavy tears fell from her eyes. He had
caught the one swift look from her blue eyes when she first recognized
him: he had seen the blush upon her cheeks then; the look and the blush
had told him all that he wanted to know, for they had revealed her soul
to him. Manlike, he looked no further. Happiness is such a natural thing
for wretched humanity to desire, that it is so much easier to believe in
it than in misery when it comes.

At last he contrived to say a few words.

"Elsa! how are you, my dove?" he said naively.

"I am quite well, thank you, Andor," she murmured through her tears.

Then she tried to draw her wrists out of his tenacious clutch.

"May I not kiss you, Elsa?" he asked, with a light, happy laugh--the
laugh of a man sure of himself, and sure of the love which will yield
him the kiss.

"If you like, Andor," she replied.

She could not have denied him the kiss, not just then, at any rate, not
even though every time that his warm lips found her eyes, her cheeks,
her neck, she felt such a pain in her heart that surely she thought that
she must die of it.

After that he let her wrists go, and she went to sit on a low stool,
some little distance away from him. Her cheeks were glowing now, and it
was no use trying to disguise her tears. Andor saw them, of course, but
he did not seem upset by them: he knew that girls w