her presence were the sweetest she had ever heard, or ever could
hear. Nothing mattered at all, save that he loved her and was
angry with her.

"Don't say such dreadful things to me," she stammered, "I did not
mean to listen. I could not help it. I shall never laugh at you.
Oh, Jasper"--she looked bravely at him and the fine soul of her
shone through the flesh like an illuminating lamp--"I am glad that
you love me! and I am glad I chanced to overhear you, since you
would never have had the courage to tell me otherwise. Glad--
glad! Do you understand, Jasper?"

Jasper looked at her with the eyes of one who, looking through
pain, sees rapture beyond.

"Is it possible?" he said, wonderingly. "Alice--I am so much
older than you--and they call me the Awkward Man--they say I am
unlike other people"--

"You ARE unlike other people," she said softly, "and that is why I
love you. I know now that I must have loved you ever since I saw
you."

"I loved you long before I saw you," said Jasper.

He came close to her and drew her into his arms, tenderly and
reverently, all his shyness and awkwardness swallowed up in the
grace of his great happiness. In the old garden he kissed her
lips and Alice entered into her own.