e said you had discarded your crutches too soon and had
fallen and lamed yourself again. Are you able to walk yet?"

"Yes, of course."

"Outdoors?"

"A--no, not just yet."

"In other words, you are practically bedridden."

"No, no! I can get about the room very well."

"You couldn't go down-stairs--for an hour's drive, could you?"

"Can't manage that for awhile," he said hastily.

"Oh, the vanity of you, Stephen Siward! the vanity! Ashamed to let me
see you when you are not your complete and magnificently attractive
self! Silly, I shall see you! I shall drive down on the first sunny
morning and sit outside in my victoria until you can't stand the
temptation another instant. I'm going to do it. You cannot stop me;
nobody can stop me. I desire to do it, and that is sufficient, I think,
for everybody concerned. If the sun is out to-morrow, I shall be out
too! ... I am so tired of not seeing you! Let central listen! I don't
care. I don't care what I am saying. I've endured it so long--I--There's
no use! I am too tired of it, and I want to see you. ... Can't we see each
other without--without--thinking about things that are settled once and
for all?"

"I can't," he said.

"Then you'd better learn to! Because, if you think I'm going through
life without seeing you frequently you are simple! I've stood it too
long at a time. I won't go through this sort of thing again! You'd
better be amiable; you'd better be civil to me, or--or--nobody on earth
can tell what will happen! The idea of you telling me you had lost your
nerve! You've got to get it back--and help me find mine! Yes, it's gone,
gone, gone! I lost it in the rain, somewhere, to-day. ... Does the scent
of the rain come in at your window? ... Do you remember--There! I can't
say it. ... Good-bye. Good-bye. You must get well and I must, too.
Good-bye."

The fruit of her imprudence was happiness--an excited happiness, which
lasted for a day. The rain lasted, too, for another day, then turned to
snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the
great blizzard--blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying
squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling
like wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars
halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy
wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out;
and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions