“You?”

Her monosyllable had been Miss Avery’s, but there resemblance parted.  Sharlee sat still in her chair, and presently her lashes fluttered and fell.  To West’s surprise, a beautiful color swept upward from her throat to drown in her rough dark hair.  “Oh,” said she, under her breath, “I’m glad—­so glad!”

West heaved a great sigh of relief.  It was all over, and she was glad.  Hadn’t he known all along that a woman will always forgive everything in the man she loves?  She was glad because he had told her when another man might have kept silent.  And yet her look perplexed him; her words perplexed him.  Undoubtedly she must have something more to say than a mere expression of vague general gladness over the situation.

“Need I say that I never intended there should be any doubt about the matter?  I meant to explain it all to you long ago, only there never seemed to be any suitable opportunity.”

Sharlee’s color died away.  In silence she raised her eyes and looked at him.

“I started to tell you all about it once, at the time, but you know,” he said, with a little nervous laugh, “you seemed to find the subject so extremely painful then—­that I thought I had better wait till you could look at it more calmly.”

Still she said nothing, but only sat still in her chair and looked at him.

“I shall always regret,” continued West, laboriously, “that my—­silence, which I assure you I meant in kindness, should have—­Why do you look at me that way, Miss Weyland?” he said, with a quick change of voice.  “I don’t understand you.”

Sharlee gave a small start and said:  “Was I looking at you in any particular way?”

“You looked as mournful,” said West, with that same little laugh, “as though you had lost your last friend.  Now—­”

“No, not my last one,” said Sharlee.

“Well, don’t look so sad about it,” he said, in a voice of affectionate raillery.  “I am quite unhappy enough over it without—­”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you to feel happier—­not to-night.  If I look sad, you see, it is because I feel that way.”

“Sad?” he echoed, bewildered.  “Why should you be sad now—­when it is all going to be straightened out—­when—­”

“Well, don’t you think it’s pretty sad—­the part that can’t ever be straightened out?”

Unexpectedly she got up, and walked slowly away, a disconcerting trick she had; wandered about the room, looking about her something like a stranger in a picture gallery; touching a bowl of flowers here, there setting a book to rights; and West, rising too, following her sombrely with his eyes, had never wanted her so much in all his life.

Presently she returned to him; asked him to sit down again; and, still standing herself, began speaking in a quiet kind voice which, nevertheless, rang ominously in his ears from her first word.