could not have been
otherwise than true, as he had written. But the consciousness of what
Mad would see when she lifted up her eyes and looked him in the face
made him droop his head. He had got a glimpse of it that morning, when,
as the thought of Mad grew more and more vivid in his mind, he saw
something reflected in the glass which did not necessarily belong to
bodily maturity. The conviction returned to him with fresh, poignant
regret, in the peaceful hush and subdued splendour of the winter night.
There were lines in his face which Mad should never have seen there,
without which he would have been nearer heaven. There were hard,
unbelieving lines, supercilious lines, self-indulgent lines, lines of
the earth, earthy, corresponding to hard and gross lines in the spirit
within. The respectable, prosperous merchant, had fallen from his
original level. He had not attained to the chivalrous, Christian manhood
which he had the prospect of when he was Mad's promising lover. He had
lowered his standard, forsaken his principles, lost his faith a few
times since then. The gulf between Mad and him was wider now. He felt
this walking on the moonlight December night by Mad's side again.

It was in a somewhat different tone from that of his letter that Bill
Nairne said at last, "Mad, will you have the worst of me? Will you do
something for me and mine after all? I might have been another man if I
had got you long ago, Mad."

"Would you have been a better and a happier man, Bill? Could I do
anything for you yet? Answer me truly," she said, hurriedly heaping the
self-forgetful, quivering sentences one upon another.

"Anything!" exclaimed big Bill Nairne with intense conviction and
hyperbole, more excusable than his old prudence and fickleness,
"Anything! Mad, you could do everything with me, and with little Bill
and Bob. We should no longer be egotistical and frivolous, with you to
keep us right, you good, single-hearted Mad."

* * * * *

Miss Sandys was entitled to say, "You have come out this Christmas, Miss
West. I shan't allow my assistant to be taken off her satirical staid
feet another Christmas. I'll lock the next one up for the holidays. It
is all those holidays; you would never have thought of such foolish
things had you been busy teaching. I'll lock the next one up, or I'll
send her to her friends, who will live, I trust, in some peaceful
valley, where there are no old acquaintances, or