were but music, the voices
from the rooms below were speech of another happy world. Before him,
radiant, was that which he had vaguely sought. Not for him to marry
merely the neighbour's daughter! This other half of himself, with feet
running far to find the missing friend, had sought him out through all
the years, through all the miles, through all the spheres! This was
fate, and at this thought his heart glowed, his eyes shone, his very
stature seemed to increase. He wist not of Nature and her ways of
attraction. He only knew that here was that Other whose hand,
pathetically sought, he had hitherto missed in the darkness of the
foregone days. Now, thought he, it was all happily concluded. The
quotient was no indefinite one; it had an end. It ended here, upon the
edge of the infinite which he had sought; upon the pinnacle of that
universe of which he had learned; here, in this brilliant chamber of
delight, this irradiant abode, this noble hall bedecked with gems and
silks and stars and all the warp and woof of his many, many days of
dreams!

Mr. and Mrs. Buford had for the time excused themselves by reason of
Mrs. Buford's weariness, and after the easy ways of that time and place
the young people found themselves alone. Thus it was that Mary Ellen,
with a temporary feeling of helplessness, found herself face to face
with the very man whom she at that time cared least to see.

CHAPTER XVI

ANOTHER HOUR

"But it seems as though I had always known you," said Franklin, turning
again toward the tall figure at the window. There was no reply to
this, neither was there wavering in the attitude of the head whose
glossy back was turned to him at that moment.

"It was like some forgotten strain of music!" he blundered on, feeling
how hopeless, how distinctly absurd was all his speech. "I surely must
always have known you, somewhere!" His voice took on a plaintive
assertiveness which in another he would have derided and have
recognised as an admission of defeat.

Mary Ellen still gazed out of the window. In her mind there was a
scene strangely different from this which she beheld. She recalled the
green forests and the yellow farms of Louisburg, the droning bees, the
broken flowers and all the details of that sodden, stricken field.
With a shudder there came over her a swift resentment at meeting here,
near at hand, one who had had a share in that scene of desolation.

Franklin felt keenly enough tha