ean?"

"My theory--?" the girl hesitated again. "I should think it's someone he
was fond of when he was a young man, and whom he treated badly. She's
ugly enough now--but then women do change so."

"Bubbles," he uttered her name very seriously.

"Yes, Bill?"

"Surely you can stop yourself seeing these kind of strange, dreadful,
unnatural things?"

Bubbles did not answer all at once. And then she said: "Yes--and no,
Bill! It sometimes happens that I see what you would call a ghost
without wishing to see it; yet I confess that sometimes I _could_ stop
myself. But it excites and stimulates me! I feel a sort of longing to be
in touch with what no one else is in touch with. But I'll tell you one
thing"--she was pressing up closer to him now, and his heart was
beating.... If only this enchanted hour could go on--if only Bubbles
would continue in this gentle, sincere, confiding mood--

"Yes," he said hoarsely, "what will you tell me?"

"I never see anything bad when I'm with you. I think I saw your Guardian
Angel the other day, Bill."

He tried to laugh.

"Indeed I did! Though you are so tiresome and priggish," she whispered,
"though often, as you know, I should like to shake you, still, I know
that you've chosen the good way; that's why our ways lie so apart,
dearest--"

As she uttered the strange words, she had slid down, and was now lying
in his arms, her face turned up to his in the dim light....

Their ways apart? Ah, no! He caught her fiercely to his heart, and for
the first time their lips met in a long, clinging kiss.

Then, all at once, he got up and pulled Bubbles on to her feet. "We must
be going back to the house," he said, speaking with a touch of hardness
and decision which was rare in his dealings with the girl.

"Watch with me, and pray for me," she muttered--and then: "You don't
know what a comfort you are to me, Bill."

A wild wish suddenly possessed him to turn and implore her, now that she
was in this strange, gentle, yielding mood, to marry him at once--to
become his wife in secret, under any conditions that seemed good to her!
But he checked the impulse, drove it back. He felt that he would be
taking a mean advantage if he did that now. She had once said to him: "I
_must_ marry a rich man, Bill. I should make any poor man miserable."

He had never forgotten that, nor forgiven her for saying it--though he
had never believed that it was true.

Almost as if she was reading into his mind,