ll
go abroad with me?" Bessie flushed to her temples and rose from the
sofa. She had a way, when she was very much in earnest, or very much
stirred with some passionate thought, of pacing the parlor with her
hands clasped tightly before her, and her arms tense and straining at
the clasping hands. With her head bent slightly forward, and her brown
hair hanging in one long tress over her shoulder, she went swiftly
up and down, while I lay back on the sofa and watched her. She would
speak it out presently, the thought that was hurting her. So I felt
secure and waited, following every movement with a lover's eye. But
I ought not to have waited. I should have drawn her to me and shared
that rapid, nervous walk--should have compelled her with sweet force
to render an account of that emotion. But I was so secure, so entirely
one with her in thought, that I could conceive of nothing but a
passing tempest at my blundering, stupid thoughtfulness for her.

Suddenly at the door she stopped, and with her hand upon it said,
"Good-night, Charlie;" and was out of the room in a twinkling.

I sprang from the sofa and to the foot of the stairs, but I saw only a
glimpse of her vanishing dress; and though I called after her in
low, beseeching tones, "Bessie! Bessie!" a door shut in the distant
corridor for only answer.

What to do? In that decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my
impulse to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me,
I was forced to put aside after a moment's consideration.

I stood there in the quiet hall, the old clock ticking away a solemn
"I-told-you-so!" in the corner. I made one step toward the kitchen
to send a message by one of the maids, but recoiled at the suggestion
that this would publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the
hall, my footsteps making no noise on the India matting, and entered
the parlor again like a thief. I sat down by the table: "Bessie will
certainly come back: she will get over her little petulance, and know
I am here waiting."

All about the parlor were the traces of my darling. A soft little coil
of rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the
stitches, lay in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made
of scented grass, and there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance
about the knitting-work. I took possession of it and thrust it into my
breast-pocket. A magazine she had been reading, with the palest slip
of a paper-knife--