ought to know, very well, who that woman is.’  And then he got up and walked away.  He did not ask me to come, and I felt I dared not go after him.  And then I lay and thought.  I remembered being here; I thought of what I had said to you—­of what I had fancied now and then about—­about you.  I felt myself a brute all round; for what right had I to come and tell you what he told me?  And yet, there it was—­I had to come.  And if it was no good my coming, why, we needn’t say anything about it ever, need we?  But—­but—­just look here, Miss Boyce; if you—­if you could begin over again, and make Aldous happy, then there’d be a good many other people happy too—­I can tell you that.”

He could hardly speak plainly.  Evidently there was on him an overmastering impulse of personal devotion, gratitude, remorse, which for the moment even eclipsed his young passion.  It was but vaguely explained by anything he had said; it rested clearly on the whole of his afternoon’s experience.

But neither could Marcella speak, and her pallor began to alarm him.

“I say!” he cried; “you’re not angry with me?”

She moved away from him, and with her shaking finger began to cut the pages of a book that lay open on the mantelpiece.  The little mechanical action seemed gradually to restore her to self-control.

“I don’t think I can talk about it,” she said at last, with an effort; “not now.”

“Oh!  I know,” said Frank, in penitence, looking at her black dress; “you’ve been upset, and had such a lot of trouble.  But I—­”

She laid her hand on his shoulder.  He thought he had never seen her so beautiful, pale as she was.

“I’m not the least angry.  I’ll tell you so—­another day.  Now, are you going to Betty?”

The young fellow sprang up, all his expression changing, answering to the stimulus of the word.

“They’ll be home directly, Miss Raeburn and Betty,” he said steadily, buttoning his coat; “they’d gone out calling somewhere.  Oh! she’ll lead me a wretched life, will Betty, before she’s done!”

A charming little ghost of a smile crossed Marcella’s white lips.

“Probably Betty knows her business,” she said; “if she’s quite unmanageable, send her to me.”

In his general turmoil of spirits the boy caught her hand and kissed it—­would have liked, indeed, to kiss her and all the world.  But she laughed, and sent him away, and with a sly, lingering look at her he departed.

She sank into her chair and never moved for long.  The April sun was just sinking behind the cedars, and through the open south window of the library came little spring airs and scents of spring flowers.  There was an endless twitter of birds, and beside her the soft chatter of the wood fire.  An hour before, her mood had been at open war with the spring, and with all those impulses and yearnings in herself which answered to it.  Now it seemed to her that a wonderful and buoyant life, akin to all the vast stir, the sweet revivals of Nature, was flooding her whole being.