and was aware of a sudden difficulty in speaking.
"Is it far?"

"No," he said; "only a step."

He gathered up her hand-baggage and led the way, making a path for
her through the throng.

She scarcely noticed where she went, so completely did he fill her
mind. He had changed enormously, developed in a fashion that she
had never deemed possible. He walked with a free swing, and
carried himself as one who counted. He had the look of one
accustomed to command. She seemed to read prosperity in every
line. But was he prosperous? If so, why had he not sent for her
long ago?

They reached the hotel. He led the way without pause straight to a
small private room where a table had been prepared for a meal.

"Sit down!" he said. "Take off your things! You must be starved."

He rang the bell and gave an order while she mutely obeyed. All
her confidence was gone. She had begun to tremble. The wonder
crossed her mind if perhaps she, too, had altered, grown beyond all
his previous conception of her. Possibly she was as much a
stranger to him as he to her. Was that why he had looked at her
with that oddly critical expression? Was that why he did not now
take her in his arms?

Impulsively she took off her hat and turned round to him.

He was looking at her still, and again that awful sense of doubt
mastered and possessed her. A great barrier seemed to have sprung
up between them. He was formidable, actually formidable. The Guy
of old days, impetuous, hot-tempered even, had never been that.

She stood before him, controlling her rising agitation with a great
effort. "Why do you look at me like that?" she said. "I feel--you
make me feel--as if--you are a total stranger!"

His face changed a little, but still she could not read his look.
"Sit down!" he said. "We must have a talk."

She put out her hand to him. The aloofness of his speech cut her
with an anguish intolerable. "What has happened?" she said.
"Quick! Tell me! Don't you want to--marry me?"

He took her hand. She saw that in some fashion he was moved,
though still she could not understand. "I'm trying to tell you,"
he said; "but--to be honest--you've hit me in the wind, and I don't
know how. I think you have forgotten in all these years what Guy
was like."

She gazed at him blankly. Again Jeffcott's words were running in
her mind. And something--something hidden behind them--arose up
like a menace and terrified her.

"I haven't fo