she asked,
with some diffidence, "Do you think you'd care to take the rooms?"

Did he? Did the Peri outside the gates yearn to enter? Here within
his reach was that from which he had been cut off for five years. Five
years in boarding-houses and cheap hotels, and now the chance to live
again--as he had once lived!

"I do want them--awfully--but the price named in your letter seems
ridiculously small----"

"But you see it is all I shall need," she was as blissfully
unbusinesslike as he. "I want to add a certain amount to my income, so
I ask you to pay that," she smiled, and with increasing diffidence
demanded, "Could you make up your mind--now? It is important that I
should know--to-night."

She saw the question in his eyes and answered it, "You see--my family
have no idea that I am doing this. If they knew, they wouldn't want me
to rent the rooms--but the house is mine---I shall do as I please."

She seemed to fling it at him, defiantly.

"And you want me to be accessory to your--crime."

She gave him a startled glance. "Oh, do you look at it--that way?
Please don't. Not if you like them."

For a moment, only, he wavered. There was something distinctly unusual
in acquiring a vine and fig tree in this fashion. But then her
advertisement had been unusual--it was that which had attracted him,
and had piqued his interest so that he had answered it.

And the books! As he looked back into the big room, the rows of
volumes seemed to smile at him with the faces of old friends.

Lonely, longing for a haven after the storms which had beaten him, what
better could he find than this?

As for the family of Mary Ballard, what had he to do with it? His
business was with Mary Ballard herself, with her frank laugh and her
friendliness--and her arms full of roses!

"I like them so much that I shall consider myself most fortunate to get
them."

"Oh, really?" She hesitated and held out her hand to him. "You don't
know how you have helped me out--you don't know how you have helped
me----"

Again she saw a question in his eyes, but this time she did not answer
it. She turned and went into the other room, drawing back the curtains
of the deep windows of the round tower.

"I haven't shown you the best of all," she said. Beneath them lay the
lovely city, starred with its golden lights. From east to west the
shadowy dimness of the Mall, beyond the shadows, a line of river,
silver under the moonlight. A cloc