o town when I did: his car raced my train for
the last two miles. He has gone to the hotel. Doubtless you will see him
within the hour. Miss Georgiana, I can't let you marry him without
telling you that if you do you will be an unhappy woman for the rest of
your life."

She was speechless for a moment with surprise. She forgot her encounter
with the speaker in her astonishment at his news. Channing had come
back, then, even as he had vowed, long before the rest of the party. The
knowledge that he was close at hand again, bringing back with him such a
wild will to accomplish that of which he had been thwarted that he had
not been able to brook delay upon the other side of the water, was
knowledge of the sort which stopped the breath.

"Will you forgive me?" said Mr. Jefferson's low voice in her ear.

"But--but I--don't understand," she stammered--and now at last she
showed him her unhappy eyes.

"What I have to do with it? How can I fail to have something to do with
it? When I let you sail in the same party with this young man without
warning you, it was because I had no possible notion that he was to be
along. When I learned that he had gone and that he had followed you
back, I knew that he was in earnest--at least in his pursuit of you. I
had thought there was no actual danger for you on account of your
friend--your real friend--the young man whom you had known and trusted
so long and with such reason. But now, with him away and you alone here
and lonely and full of the hunger for life--yes, I know I am speaking
plainly, but I feel that I must put you on your guard. And I want you to
feel that though I shall be gone to-morrow night I am here to-night, and
if you have any need for me--for an elder brother----"

"Oh, how can you think----"

"I do think--and I know--and I fear for you. Not because I do not
believe in you, but because I know the manner of man who will approach
you. You have never known his sort. Let me be a brother to you--just for
to-night, if only in your thought. It may help to steady you."

There was silence between them for a little. Then steps upon the front
porch, quick, ringing steps, as of one who comes with eagerness.
Georgiana felt her hand taken for an instant and pressed warmly between
two firm hands. Then her companion left her....

Three hours afterward Georgiana flung herself, breathing fast, upon her
knees beside her open window and lifted her face toward the sky. She
would have f