is two o'clock, Aunt Isabelle."

"I didn't know; I thought perhaps he had come."

Going back into her room, Mary threw on her blue dressing-gown and
slippers and opened her door. The light was still burning in the hall.
Barry always turned it out when he came. She stood undecided, then
started down the back stairs, but halted as the door opened and a dark
figure appeared.

"Barry----"

Roger Poole looked up at her. "It isn't your brother," he said. "I--I
must beg your pardon for disturbing you. I could not sleep, and I went
out----" He stopped and stammered. Poised there above him with all
the wonder of her unbound hair about her, she was like some celestial
vision.

She smiled at him. "It doesn't matter," she said; "please don't
apologize. It was foolish of me to be--frightened. But I had
forgotten that there was any one else in the house."

She was unconscious of the effect of her words. But his soul shrank
within him. To her he was the lodger who paid the rent. To him she
was, well, just now she was, to him, the Blessed Damosel!

Faintly in the distance they heard the closing of a door. "It's
Barry," Mary said, and suddenly a wave of self-consciousness swept over
her. What would Barry think to find her at this hour talking to Roger
Poole? And what would he think of Roger Poole, who walked in the
garden on a rainy night?

Roger saw her confusion. "I'll turn out this light," he said, "and
wait----"

And she waited, too, in the darkness until Barry was safe in his own
room, then she spoke softly. "Thank you so much," she said, and was
gone.

CHAPTER V

_In Which Roger Remembers a Face and Delilah Remembers a Voice--and in
Which a Poem and a Pussy Cat Play an Important Part._

Since the night of his arrival, Roger had not intruded upon the family
circle. He had read hostility in Barry's eyes as the boy had looked up
at him; and Mary, in spite of her friendliness, had forgotten that he was
in the house! Well, they had set the pace, and he would keep to it.
Here in the tower he could live alone--yet not be lonely, for the books
were there--and they brought forgetfulness.

He took long walks through the city, now awakening to social and
political activities. Back to town came the folk who had fled from the
summer heat; back came the members of House and of Senate, streaming in
from North, South, East and West for the coming Congress. Back came the
office-seekers and the pathe