ill you ask my father if he will see me at once?" he said to the
butler.

"Mr. Wingfield left word that he had to go into the country for the
night," answered the butler. "I am sorry, sir," he added confusedly, in
view of the blank disappointment with which the information was received.

In dreary state Jack dined by himself in the big dining-room, leaving the
food almost untouched. At intervals he was roused to a sense of his
presence at table by the servant's question if he should bring another
course. Without waiting for the last one, he went downstairs to the
drawing-room, and standing near the "Portrait of a Lady," again poured
out his questions, receiving the old answer of "I give! I give!" which
meant, he knew, that she had given all of herself to him. Saying after
saying of hers raced through his mind without throwing light on the
mystery, which had the uncanniness of a conspiracy against him.

And after his mother, Mary had influenced him more than any other person.
She had brought life to the seeds which his mother had planted in his
nature. That new life could not die, but without her it could not
flourish. Her cry of "It's not in the blood!" again came echoing to his
ears. What had she meant? The question sent him to the Ewolds' hotel; it
sent this note up to her room:

"MARY:

"In behalf of old desert comradeship, if I were in trouble wouldn't you
help me all you could? If I were in darkness and you could give me light,
would you refuse? Won't you see me for a few moments, if I promise to
keep to my side of the barrier which you have raised between us? I will
wait here in the lobby a long time, hoping that you will.

"JACK."

"All the light I have to give. I also am in darkness," came the answer in
a nervous, impulsive hand across a sheet of paper; and soon Mary herself
appeared from the elevator, not in the fashion of the Avenue, but in
simple gray coat and skirt, such as she wore at home. She greeted him in
a startled, half-fearful manner, as if her presence were due to the
impulsion of duty rather than choice.

"Shall we walk?" she asked, turning toward the door in the welcome of
movement as a steadying influence in her evident emotion.

There they were in the old rhythm of step of Little Rivers companionship
on a cross-town street. He saw that the costly hat that he had selected
for her in the display of a shop-window after all was not the equal of
the plain model with a fetching turn to the b