en his thought glanced from John Dana to Mr.
Pinkham and the Rev. Arthur Langly, both of whom were assiduous
visitors at the house. The former had lately taken to accompanying
Margaret on the piano with his dismal little flute, and the latter
was perpetually making a moth of himself about her class at
Sunday-school.

Richard stood with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon the
plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things. Presently he
heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere in the distance, saying,--

"I have not finished yet, Richard."

"Go on," said Richard, falling to work again with a kind of
galvanic action. "Go on, please."

"I have a serious grievance. Frankly, I am hurt by your
preoccupation and indifference, your want of openness or
cordiality,--I don't know how to name it. You are the only person who
seems to be unaware that I escaped a great danger a month ago. I am
obliged to remember all the agreeable hours I have spent in the
studio to keep off the impression that during my illness you got used
to not seeing me, and that now my presence somehow obstructs your
work and annoys you."

Richard threw his chisel on the bench, and crossed over to the
window where Margaret was.

"You are as wrong as you can be," he said, looking down on her
half-lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding; for
the abruptness of Richard's movement had startled her.

"I am glad if I am wrong."

"It is nearly an unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark as
you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had died that time!"

"You would have been very sorry?"

"Sorry? No. That doesn't express it; one outlives mere sorrow. If
anything had happened to you, I should never have got over it. You
don't know what those five weeks were to me. It was a kind of death
to come to this room day after day, and not find you."

Margaret rested her eyes thoughtfully on the space occupied by
Richard rather than on Richard himself, seeming to look through and
beyond him, as if he were incorporeal.

"You missed me like that?" she said slowly.

"I missed you like that."

Margaret meditated a moment. "In the first days of my illness I
wondered if you didn't miss me a little; afterwards everything was
confused in my mind. When I tried to think, I seemed to be somebody
else,--I seemed to be _you_ waiting for me here in the studio.
Wasn't that singular? But when I recovered, and returned to my old
place, I began to suspect I ha