she said she did not
want to talk yet."

"All right," he returned. "I'm going to take a nap; I believe I feel as
if I hadn't slept for a month."

He slept the greater part of the afternoon, and came down rather dull to
the early tea. Cynthia was absent again, and his mother was silent and
wore a troubled look. Whitwell was full of a novel conception of the
agency of hypnotism in interpreting the life of the soul as it is
intimated in dreams. He had been reading a book that affirmed the
consubstantiality of the sleep-dream and the hypnotic illusion. He wanted
to know if Jeff, down at Boston, had seen anything of the hypnotic doings
that would throw light on this theory.

It was still full light when they rose from the table, and it was
scarcely twilight when Jeff heard Cynthia letting herself out at the back
door. He fancied her going down to her father's house, and he went out to
the corner of the hotel to meet her. She faltered a moment at sight of
him, and then kept on with averted face.

He joined her, and walked beside her. "Well, Cynthy, what are you going
to say to me? I'm off for Cambridge again to-morrow morning, and I
suppose we've got to understand each other. I came up here to put myself
in your hands, to keep or to throw away, just as you please. Well? Have
you thought about it?"

"Every minute," said the girl, quietly.

"Well?"

"If you had cared for me, it couldn't have happened."

"Oh yes, it could. Now that's just where you're mistaken. That's where a
woman never can understand a man. I might carry on with half a dozen
girls, and yet never forget you, or think less of you, although I could
see all the time how pretty and bright every one of 'em was. That's the
way a man's mind is built. It's curious, but it's true."

"I don't believe I care for any share in your mind, then," said the girl.

"Oh, come, now! You don't mean that. You know I was just joking; you know
I don't justify what I've done, and I don't excuse it. But I think I've
acted pretty square with you about it--about telling you, I mean. I don't
want to lay any claim, but you remember when you made me promise that if
there was anything shady I wanted to hide from you--Well, I acted on
that. You do remember?"

"Yes," said Cynthia, and she pulled the cloud over the side of her face
next to him, and walked a little faster.

He hastened his steps to keep up with her. "Cynthy, if you put your arms
round me, as you did then--"

"I