“There may be a devil,” she said to herself, frightened at her own blasphemy, “but there certainly is no God.”  Again, the Bible’s promises, so confident, so lofty, so marvelously responsive to the longings and cravings of every kind of desolation and woe, had a soothing effect upon her; and they helped to put her in the frame of mind to find for conversation—­or, rather, for her monologues to him—­subjects which her instinct told her would be welcome visitors in that prison.

She talked to him of how he was loved, of how noble his influence had been in their lives.  She analyzed him to himself, saying things she would never have dared say had there been the slightest chance of so much response as the flutter of an eyelid.  And as, so it seemed to her, the sympathetic relations and understanding between them grew, she became franker, talked of her aspirations—­new-born aspirations in harmony with his life and belief.  And, explaining herself for his benefit and bringing to light her inmost being to show to him, she saw it herself.  And when she one day said to him, “Your illness has made a better woman of me, father, dear father,” she felt it with all her heart.

It was from this atmosphere, and enveloped in it, that she went out to greet Ross; and, as she went, she was surprised at her own calmness before the prospect of seeing him again, after six months’ separation—­the longest in their lives.

His expression was scrupulously correct—­joy at seeing her shadowed by sympathy for her calamity.  When they were safely alone, he took her hand and was about to kiss her.  Her beauty was of the kind that is different from, and beyond, memory’s best photograph.  She never looked exactly the same twice; that morning she seemed to him far more tempting than he had been thinking, with his head for so many weeks full of worldly ideas.  He was thrilled anew, and his resolve hesitated before the fine pallor of her face, the slim lines of her figure, and the glimpses of her smooth white skin through the openwork in the yoke and sleeves of her blouse.  But, instead of responding she drew back, just a little.  He instantly suspected her of being in the state of mind into which he had been trying to get himself.  He dropped her hand.  A trifling incident, but a trifle is enough to cut the communications between two human beings; it often accomplishes what the rudest shocks would not.  They went to the far, secluded end of the garden, he asking and she answering questions about her father.

“What is it, Del?” he said abruptly, at length.  “You act strained toward me.”  He did not say this until she had been oppressed almost into silence by the height and the thickness of the barrier between them.

“I guess it’s because I’ve been shut in with father,” she suggested.  “I’ve seen no one to talk to, except the family and the doctor, for weeks.”  And she tried to fix her mind on how handsome and attractive he was.  As a rebuke to her heart’s obstinate lukewarmness she forced herself to lay her hand in his.