to do what I have to do--and then you will be ready for me."

"Yes," he said, "I shall be ready."

He lingered in the well-remembered hall . . . . And when at last she
came down again her eyes shone bravely through her tears, her look
answered the question of his own. There was no need for speech. With
not so much as a look behind she left, with him, her father's house.

Outside, the mist had become a drizzle, and as they went down the walk
together beside the driveway she slipped her arm into his, pressing close
to his side. Her intuition was perfect, the courage of her love sublime.

"I have you, dear," she whispered, "never in my life before have I been
rich."

"Alison!"

It was all he could say, but the intensity of his mingled feeling went
into the syllables of her name. An impulse made them pause and turn,
and they stood looking back together at the great house which loomed the
greater in the thickening darkness, its windows edged with glow. Never,
as in this moment when the cold rain wet their faces, had the thought of
its comfort and warmth and luxury struck him so vividly; yes, and of its
terror and loneliness now, of the tortured spirit in it that found no
rest.

"Oh, John," she cried, "if we only could!"

He understood her. Such was the perfect quality of their sympathy that