it best to make it clear why it would do me considerable damage just now
if you should write."

"Tell me," she said tremulously, "is there anything--anything I can do
to--to balance the deep debt of gratitude I owe you----"

"What debt?" he asked, astonished. "Oh! that? Why, that is no debt--
except that I was happy--perfectly and serenely happy to have had that
chance to--to hear your voice----"

"You were brave," she said hastily. "You may make as light of it as you
please, but I know."

"So do I," he laughed, enchanted with the rising color in her cheeks.

"No, you don't; you don't know how I felt--how afraid I was to show how
deeply--deeply I felt. I felt it so deeply that I did not even tell my
sisters," she added naively.

"Your sisters?"

"Yes; you know them." And as he remained silent she said: "Do you not
know who I am? Do you not even know my name?"

He shook his head, laughing.

"I'd have given all I had to know; but, of course, I could not ask the
servants!"

Surprise, disappointment, hurt pride that he had had no desire to know