But the more he told himself “impossible”, the more positive grew a certain perverse inner asseveration that it was quite possible.  And what if the person in the park had known it?  He reviewed the circumstances of their different meetings; details that had not impressed themselves upon him at the time—­that had almost escaped his notice, now stood out clearer—­too clear, in his mind.  He remembered how she had brightened astonishingly after the brief fainting spell when he had made his ill-advised proposal.  It had been as elixir to her.  He recalled how she had met him every day.  Had it been mere chance?  Or—­disconcerting suspicion!—­had she deliberately planned—­

For Mr. Heatherbloom there was no sleep that night.  At the first signs of dawn he was up and out, directing his steps toward the park, as a criminal returns to the haunts of his crime.  No faces of any kind now greeted him there; only trees confronted him, gaunt, ghostlike in the early morning mists.  Even the squirrels were yet abed in their miniature Swiss chalets in the air.  The sun rose at last, red and threatening.  He now met a policeman who looked at him questioningly.  Mr. Heatherbloom greeted him with a blitheness at variance with his mood.  Officialdom only growled and gazed after the young man as if to say:  “We’ll gather you in, yet.”

It was past nine o’clock before Mr. Heatherbloom ventured to approach the house; as he did so, the front door closed; some one had been admitted.  He himself went in through the area way; from above came joyous barks, a woman’s voice; pandemonium.  Mr. Heatherbloom listened.  Later he learned what had happened; a young woman had brought back Naughty; a very honest young woman who refused all reward.

“Sure,” said the cook, who had the story from the butler, “and she spoke loike a quane.  ’I can take nothing for returning what doesn’t belong to me, ma’am.  I am but doing my jooty.  But if ye plaze, would ye be lookin’ over these recommends av mine—­they’re from furriners—­and if yez be havin’ ony friends who be wanting a maid and yez might be so good as to recommind me, I’d be thankin’ of yez, for it’s wurrk I wants.’  Think av that now.  Only wurrk!  Who says there arn’t honest servin’ gurrls, nowadays?  The mistress was that pleased with her morals an’ her manners—­so loidy-loike!—­she gave her the job that shlip av a Jane had; wid an advance av salary on the sphot.”

“You mean Miss Van Rolsen has actually engaged her?” Mr. Heatherbloom, face abeam, repeated.

“Phawt have I been saying just now?” Scornfully.  “Sure, an’ is it ears you have on your head?”

Mr. Heatherbloom, a weight lifted from his shoulders, departed from the kitchen.  He had wronged her—­this poor girl, or young woman, who, in her dire distress, had appealed to him.  How he despised now the uncharitable dark thoughts of the night!  How he could congratulate himself he had obeyed impulse, and not stopped to reason too closely, or to question too suspiciously, when he had decided to act the day before!