tion of the mental
effect of the most trivial external details, the doctor had ordered
muffins, and a kettle on the fire, and had asked Jane to make the tea.

By the time the kettle boiled, they had remembered the chestnuts, and
were laughing about poor old Fraulein's efforts to keep them in order,
and the strategies by which they used to evade her vigilance. And the
years rolled back, and Jane felt herself very much at home with the
chum of her childhood.

Nevertheless, there was a moment of tension when the doctor drew back
the tea-table and they faced each other in easy-chairs on either side
of the fireplace. Each noticed how characteristic was the attitude of
the other.

Jane sat forward, her feet firmly planted on the hearth-rug, her arms
on her knees, and her hands clasped in front of her.

The doctor leaned back, one knee crossed over the other, his elbows on
the arms of his chair, the tips of his fingers meeting, in absolute
stillness of body and intense concentration of mind.

The silence between them was like a deep, calm pool.

Jane took the first plunge.

"Deryck, I am going to tell you everything. I am going to speak of my
heart, and mind, and feelings, exactly as if they were bones, and
muscles, and lungs. I want you to combine the offices of doctor and
confessor in one."

The doctor had been contemplating his finger-tips. He now glanced
swiftly at Jane, and nodded; then turned his head and looked into the
fire.

"Deryck, mine has been a somewhat lonely existence. I have never been
essential to the life of another, and no one has ever touched the real
depths of mine. I have known they were there, but I have known they
were unsounded."

The doctor opened his lips, as if to speak; then closed them in a
firmer line than before, and merely nodded his head silently.

"I had never been loved with that love which makes one absolutely first
to a person, nor had I ever so loved. I had--cared very much; but
caring is not loving.--Oh, Boy, I know that now!"

The doctor's profile showed rather white against the dark-green
background of his chair; but he smiled as he answered: "Quite true,
dear. There is a distinction, and a difference."

"I had heaps of friends, and amongst them a good many nice men, mostly
rather younger than myself, who called me 'Miss Champion.' to my face,
and 'good old Jane' behind my back."

The doctor smiled. He had as often heard the expression, and could
recall the whole-he