“If you knew what it was to me in those unhappy days, Grizel!”

“I want it to tell me,” she whispered.

And did he really love her?  Yes, she knew he did, but how could he?

“Oh, Grizel, how could I help it!”

He had to say it, for it is the best answer; but he said it with a sigh, for it sounded like a quotation.

But how could she love him?  I think her reply disappointed him.

“Because you wanted me to,” she said, with shining eyes.  It is probably the commonest reason why women love, and perhaps it is the best; but his vanity was wounded—­he had expected to hear that he was possessed of an irresistible power.

“Not until I wanted you to?”

“I think I always wanted you to want me to,” she replied, naively; “but I would never have let myself love you,” she continued very seriously, “until I was sure you loved me.”

“You could have helped it, Grizel!” He drew a blank face.

“I did help it,” she answered.  “I was always fighting the desire to love you,—­I can see that plainly,—­and I always won.  I thought God had made a sort of compact with me that I should always be the kind of woman I wanted to be if I resisted the desire to love you until you loved me.”

“But you always had the desire!” he said eagerly.

“Always, but it never won.  You see, even you did not know of it.  You thought I did not even like you!  That was why you wanted to prevent Corp’s telling me about the glove, was it not?  You thought it would pain me only!  Do you remember what you said:  ’It is to save you acute pain that I want to see Corp first’?”

All that seemed so long ago to Tommy now!

“How could you think it would be a pain to me!” she cried.

“You concealed your feelings so well, Grizel.”

“Did I not?” she said joyously.  “Oh, I wanted to be so careful, and I was careful.  That is why I am so happy now.”  Her face was glowing.  She was full of odd, delightful fancies to-night.  She kissed her hand to the gloaming; no, not to the gloaming—­to the little hunted, anxious girl she had been.

[Illustration:  “She is standing behind that tree looking at us.”]

“She is looking at us,” she said.  “She is standing behind that tree looking at us.  She wanted so much to grow into a dear, good woman that she often comes and looks at me eagerly.  Sometimes her face is so fearful!  I think she was a little alarmed when she heard you were coming back.”

“She never liked me, Grizel.”

“Hush!” said Grizel, in a low voice.  “She always liked you; she always thought you a wonder.  But she would be distressed if she heard me telling you.  She thought it would not be safe for you to know.  I must tell him now, dearest, darlingest,” she suddenly called out boldly to the little self she had been so quaintly fond of because there was no other to love her.  “I must tell him everything now, for you are no longer your own.  You are his.”