features underwent no change.

"The last time? Last spring? But it was you who--for the
best of reasons, as you've told me--turned me back from your
very door last spring!"

She saw that he was good-humouredly ready to "thresh out,"
for her sentimental satisfaction, a question which, for his
own, Time had so conclusively dealt with; and the sense of
his readiness reassured her.

"I wrote as soon as I could," she rejoined. "I explained
the delay and asked you to come. And you never even
answered my letter."

"It was impossible to come then. I had to go back to my
post."

"And impossible to write and tell me so?"

"Your letter was a long time coming. I had waited a week--
ten days. I had some excuse for thinking, when it came,
that you were in no great hurry for an answer."

"You thought that--really--after reading it?"

"I thought it."

Her heart leaped up to her throat. "Then why are you here
today?"