e conscious that, for the first time in my whole
life, I was essential to somebody. I could not enter a room without
realising that he was instantly aware of my presence; I could not leave
a room without knowing that he would at once feel and regret my
absence. The one fact filled and completed all things; the other left a
blank which could not be removed. I knew this, and yet--incredible
though it may appear--I did not realise it meant LOVE. I thought it was
an extraordinarily close bond of sympathy and mutual understanding,
brought about principally by our enjoyment of one another's music. We
spent hours in the music-room. I put it down to that; yet when he
looked at me his eyes seemed to touch as well as see me, and it was a
very tender and wonderful touch. And all the while I never thought of
love. I was so plain and almost middle-aged; and he, such a beautiful,
radiant youth. He was like a young sun-god, and I felt warmed and
vivified when he was near; and he was almost always near. Honestly,
that was my side of the days succeeding the concert. But HIS! He told
me afterwards, Deryck, it had been a sudden revelation to him when he
heard me sing The Rosary, not of music only, but of ME. He said he had
never thought of me otherwise than as a good sort of chum; but then it
was as if a veil were lifted, and he saw, and knew, and felt me as a
woman. And--no doubt it will seem odd to you. Boy; it did to me;--but
he said, that the woman he found then was his ideal of womanhood, and
that from that hour he wanted me for his own as he had never wanted
anything before."

Jane paused, and looked into the glowing heart of the fire.

The doctor turned slowly and looked at Jane. He himself had experienced
the intense attraction of her womanliness,--all the more overpowering
when it was realised, because it did not appear upon the surface. He
had sensed the strong mother-tenderness lying dormant within her; had
known that her arms would prove a haven of refuge, her bosom a soothing
pillow, her love a consolation unspeakable. In his own days of
loneliness and disappointment, the doctor had had to flee from this in
Jane,--a precious gift, so easy to have taken because of her very
ignorance of it; but a gift to which he had no right. Thus the doctor
could well understand the hold it would gain upon a man who had
discovered it, and who was free to win it for his own.

But he only said, "I do not think it odd, dear."

Jane had forgo