Ellen shrugged her shoulders.  She knew that she ought to insist, but she knew too that it would be lovely lighting the fire for Richard.

IV

He had not been able to see Ellen for three days.  But he had written to her three times.

"I’m missing another day of you, Ellen.  And I’m greedy for every minute of you.  There you are, away from me, and moving about and doing all the sweet things you do, and saying all the things you do say, and your red hair catching the light and your voice full of exquisite sweet sounds, and I just have to get along seeing and hearing nothing of it.  I am the most insatiable of lovers.  Life is thirst without you.  I grudge every moment we have been alive on the same world and not together.  What a waste!  What a waste!  I’ve never wanted an immortal soul before, but now I do—­that I may go on with you and go on with you, you darlingissima, you endlessly lovely human thing.  I’d go through all the ages with you; we’d be like two children reading a wonderful book together, and you’d light even the darkest passage of time for me with your wit and your beauty.  Tell me everything you are doing, tell me every little thing, my lovely red-haired Ellen...."

And she had written to him twice....

"And in the evening I went out shopping.  I wish you would tell me what you like to eat.  It would give shopping an interest.  Then I went to the library and got a trashy novel for mother to read, as I am still keeping her in bed.  For myself, I wanted to read something about love, as hitherto I have not taken much interest in it and have read practically nothing on the subject, so I got out the works of Shelley and Byron.  But their love poems are very superficial.  I do wish you were here.  Please come soon.  When mother is well I will be able to make cakes for you.  Did you see the sunset yesterday?  I am surprised to find how much feeling there is arising out of what is, after all, quite an ordinary event of life.  For after all, this happens to nearly everybody.  But I do not believe it can happen quite like this to other people.  I am sure there must be something quite out of the ordinary about our feelings for one another.  Do please come soon...."

Well, he had come, his arms full of flowers and illustrated papers for the invalid, and neither his soft first knock, designed to spare Mrs. Melville’s susceptibilities, nor his more vigorous second, had brought Ellen to the door.  He stepped back some paces and looked up at the three dwarfish storeys of the silent little house, and alarm fell on him as he saw that all the windows were dark.  The reasoning portion of his mind deliberated whether there could conceivably be any bedrooms looking out to the back, but with the crazed imagination of a lover he saw extravagant visions of the evils that might befall two fragile women living alone.  He pictured Ellen sitting up in bed, blinking