her womanhood remained with him ever afterwards.

"Ah, May!" The word seemed to bring joy and tingling life to his half-
numbed heart. He seized her hands and drew her to him, and kissed her on
the hair, and brows, and eyes with an abandonment of his whole nature,
such as she had never before known in him. All her shyness, her
uneasiness vanished in the happiness of finding that she had so pleased
him, and mingled with this joy was a new delightful sense of her own
power. When released from his embrace she questioned him by a look. His
emotion astonished her.

"My love," he said, kissing her hands, "how good of you to come to me,
how sweet and brave you are to wait for me here! I was growing weak with
fear lest I should lose you, too, in the general wreck. And you came and
sat here for me patiently--Darling!"

There was a mingling of self-surrender and ruffled pride in her smiling
reproach:

"Lose me? What do you mean? I waited for you last night, sir, and all
this weary morning, till I could wait no longer; I had to find you. I
would have stayed at home till you came; I meant to, but father startled
me: he said he was afraid you'd lose your place as Professor in spite of
all he had done for you. 'Twas good of him, wasn't it, to give up running
for Mayor, so as not to embitter Gulmore against you? I was quite proud of
him. But you won't lose your post, will you? Has anything serious
happened?--Dear!"

He paused to think, but he could not see any way to avoid telling her
the truth. Disappointments had so huddled upon him, the insight he had