“Will you ask my father if he will see me at once?” he said to the butler.

“Mr. Wingfield left word that he had to go into the country for the night,” answered the butler.  “I am sorry, sir,” he added confusedly, in view of the blank disappointment with which the information was received.

In dreary state Jack dined by himself in the big dining-room, leaving the food almost untouched.  At intervals he was roused to a sense of his presence at table by the servant’s question if he should bring another course.  Without waiting for the last one, he went downstairs to the drawing-room, and standing near the “Portrait of a Lady,” again poured out his questions, receiving the old answer of “I give!  I give!” which meant, he knew, that she had given all of herself to him.  Saying after saying of hers raced through his mind without throwing light on the mystery, which had the uncanniness of a conspiracy against him.

And after his mother, Mary had influenced him more than any other person.  She had brought life to the seeds which his mother had planted in his nature.  That new life could not die, but without her it could not flourish.  Her cry of “It’s not in the blood!” again came echoing to his ears.  What had she meant?  The question sent him to the Ewolds’ hotel; it sent this note up to her room: 

“MARY: 

“In behalf of old desert comradeship, if I were in trouble wouldn’t you help me all you could?  If I were in darkness and you could give me light, would you refuse?  Won’t you see me for a few moments, if I promise to keep to my side of the barrier which you have raised between us?  I will wait here in the lobby a long time, hoping that you will.

“JACK.”

“All the light I have to give.  I also am in darkness,” came the answer in a nervous, impulsive hand across a sheet of paper; and soon Mary herself appeared from the elevator, not in the fashion of the Avenue, but in simple gray coat and skirt, such as she wore at home.  She greeted him in a startled, half-fearful manner, as if her presence were due to the impulsion of duty rather than choice.

“Shall we walk?” she asked, turning toward the door in the welcome of movement as a steadying influence in her evident emotion.

There they were in the old rhythm of step of Little Rivers companionship on a cross-town street.  He saw that the costly hat that he had selected for her in the display of a shop-window after all was not the equal of the plain model with a fetching turn to the brim and a single militant feather, which she wore that evening.  The light feather boa around her neck on account of the cool night air seemed particularly becoming.  He was near, very near, her, so near that their elbows touched; but the nearness was like that of a picture out of a frame which has come to life and may step back into cold canvas at any moment.  Oh, it was hard, in the might of his love for her, not to forget everything else and cry out another declaration, as he had from the canyon!  But her face was very still.  She was waiting for him to begin, while her fingers were playing nervously with the tip of her boa.