nds, gives me an agony of pain and remorse. I snatch away my
hands.

"No! no!" I cry, brusquely, "they do very well!"

Again she looks at me, with a sort of astonishment, a little mixed with
pain; but she does not say any thing. She goes over to the fire, and
stoops to take up the poker.

"Do not!" cry I, hastily, "there is plenty of light!--I
mean--" (stammering) "it--it--dazzles me, coming in out of the dark."

As I speak, I retire to a distant chair, as nearly as possible out of
the fire-light, and affect to be occupied with Vick, who has jumped up
on my lap, and--with all a dog's delicate care not to hurt you
_really_--is pretending severely to bite every one of my fingers.
Barbara has returned to the hearth-rug. She looks a little troubled at
first; but, after a moment or two, her face regains its usual serene
sweetness.

"And I have been here ever since you left me!" she says, presently, with
a look of soft gayety. "I have had _no_ visitors! Not even"--(blushing a
little)--"the usual one."

"No?" say I, bending down my head over Vick, and allowing her to have a
better and more thorough lick at the bridge of my nose than she has ever
enjoyed in her life before.

"_You_ did not meet him, I suppose?" she says, interrogatively.

"_I!_" cry I, starting guiltily, and stammering. "Not I! Why--why should
I?"

"Why should not you, rather?" she says, laughing a little. "It is not
such a _very_ unusual occurrence?"

"Do you think not?" I say, in a voice whose trembling is painfully
perceptible to myself. "You do not think I--I--" ("You do not think I
meet him on purpose," I am going to say; but I break off suddenly, aware
that I am betraying myself).

"He will come earlier to-morrow to make up for it"--she says, in a low
voice, more to herself than to me--"yes"--(clasping her hands lightly in
her lap, while the fire-light plays upon the lovely mildness of her
happy face, and repeating the words softly)--"yes, he will come earlier
to-morrow!"

I _cannot_ bear it. I rise up abruptly, trundling poor Vick, to whom
this reverse is quite unexpected, down on the carpet, and rushing out of
the room.

* * * * *

It is evening now--late evening, drawing toward bedtime. I am sitting
with my back to the light, and have asked for a shade for the lamp, on
the plea that the wind has cut my eyes--but, in spite of my precautions,
I am well aware that the disfigurement of my face is still unmi