“He would—­he would,” she repeated, pensively.

“Then that poor girl—­what he did for her.  I just—­” Lois paused, seeking for a word—­“trust him!”

Mrs. Lancaster smiled.

“You may,” she said.  “That is exactly the word.”

“Tell me, what was he like when—­you first knew him?”

“I don’t know—­why, he was—­he was just what he is now—­you could have trusted him—­”

“Why didn’t you marry him?” asked Lois, her eyes on the other’s face.

Mrs. Lancaster looked at her with almost a gasp.

“Why, Lois!  What are you talking about?  Who says—?”

“He says so.  He said he was desperately in love with you.”

“Why, Lois—!” began Mrs. Lancaster, with the color mounting to her cheeks.  “Well, he has gotten bravely over it,” she laughed.

“He has not.  He is in love with you now,” the young girl said calmly.

Mrs. Lancaster turned and faced her with her mouth open to speak, and read the girl’s sincerity in her face.  “With me!” She clasped her hands with a pretty gesture over her bosom.  A warm feeling suddenly surged to her heart.

The younger woman nodded.

“Yes—­and, oh, Mrs. Lancaster, don’t treat him badly!” She laid both hands on her arm and looked at her earnestly.  “He has loved you always,” she continued.

“Loved me!  Lois, you are dreaming.”  But as she said it, Alice’s heart was beating.

“Yes, he was talking to me one evening, and he began to tell me of his love for a girl,—­a young girl,—­and what a part it had played in his life—­”

“But I was married,” put in Mrs. Lancaster, seeking for further proof rather than renouncing this.

“Yes, he said she did not care for him; but he had always striven to keep her image in his heart—­her image as she was when he knew her and as he imagined her.”

Mrs. Lancaster’s face for a moment was a study.

“Do you know whom he is in love with now?” she said presently.

“Yes; with you.”

“No—­not with me; with you.”  She put her hand on Lois’s cheek caressingly, and gazed into her eyes.

The girl’s eyes sank into her lap.  Her face, which had been growing white and pink by turns, suddenly flamed.

“Mrs. Lancaster, I believe I—­” she began in low tones.  She raised her eyes, and they met for a moment Mrs. Lancaster’s.  Something in their depths, some look of sympathy, of almost maternal kindness, struck her, passed through to her long-stilled heart.  With a little cry she threw herself into the other’s arms and buried her burning face in her lap.

The expression on the face of the young widow changed.  She glanced down for a moment at the little head in her lap, then bending down, she buried her face in the brown tresses, and drew her form close to her heart.

In a moment the young girl was pouring out her soul to her as if she had been her daughter.