And still she walked back and forth in her drawing-room.  Her thoughts were uneasy and unhappy; there was no love in her life.  That life was leading to no satisfactory consummation.  How could it be changed?  What could she do?

She raised her eyes, looked across the street, and there saw, loitering along and casting furtive glances at her window, the very lad of whom she had been thinking.  He had sought and waited for her recognition, and instead of receiving it in the usual way, saw a beckoning finger.  He waited a moment, to be sure that he had not misunderstood the sign, and then, when it was repeated, crossed over, and stood at the door.  Mrs. Dillingham admitted the boy, then called the servant, and told him that, while the lad remained, she would not be at home to any one.  As soon as the pair were in the drawing-room she stooped and kissed the lad, warming his heart with a smile so sweet, and a manner so cordial and gracious, that he could not have told whether his soul was his own or hers.

She led him to her seat, giving him none, but sitting with her arm around him, as he stood at her side.

“You are my little lover, aren’t you?” she said, with an embrace.

“Not so very little!” responded Harry, with a flush.

“Well, you love me, don’t you?”

“Perhaps I do,” replied he, looking smilingly into her eyes.

“You are a rogue, sir.”

“I’m not a bad rogue.”

“Kiss me.”

Harry put his arms around Mrs. Dillingham’s neck and kissed her, and received a long, passionate embrace in return, in which her starved heart expressed the best of its powerful nature.

Nor clouds nor low-born vapors drop the dew.  It only gathers under a pure heaven and the tender eyes of stars.  Mrs. Dillingham had always held a heart that could respond to the touch of a child.  It was dark, its ways were crooked, it was not a happy heart, but for the moment her whole nature was flooded with a tender passion.  A flash of lightning from heaven makes the darkest night its own, and gilds with glory the uncouth shapes that grope and crawl beneath its cover.

“And your name is Harry?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do you mind telling me about yourself?”

Harry hesitated.  He knew that he ought not to do it.  He had received imperative commands not to tell anybody about himself; but his temptation to yield to the beautiful lady’s wishes was great, for he was heart-starved like herself.  Mrs. Balfour was kind, even affectionate, but he felt that he had never filled the place in her heart of the boy she had lost.  She did not take him into her embrace, and lavish caresses upon him.  He had hungered for just this, and the impulse to show the whole of his heart and life to Mrs. Dillingham was irresistible.

“If you’ll never tell.”

“I will never tell, Harry.”

“Never, never tell?”

“Never.”