“It is a lie!” she cried wildly.  “It is a lie!”

“What is a lie?”

He took a step towards her, for she was swaying as she stood; but she flung out her hands, keeping him from her.

Her face was working convulsively.  She turned and moved unsteadily away from him, groping out before her as she went.  So groping, she reached the door, and blindly sought the handle.  But before she found it he spoke in a tone that had subtly altered: 

“Doris!”

Her hands fell.  She stood suddenly still, listening.

“Come here!” he said.

He crossed the room and reached her.

“Look at me!” he said.

She refused for a little, trembling all over.  Then suddenly as he waited she threw back her head and met his eyes.  She was sobbing like a child that has been hurt.

He bent towards her, looking closely, closely into her quivering face.

“So,” he said, “it was a lie, was it?  But, my own girl, how was I to know?  Why on earth didn’t you say so before?”

She broke into a laugh that had in it the sound of tears.

“How could I?  You never asked.  How could I?”

“Shall I ask you now?” he said.

She stretched up her arms and clasped his neck.

“No,” she whispered back.  “Take me—­take everything—­for granted.  It’s the only way, if you want to turn a heartless little flirt like me into—­into a virtuous and amiable wife!”

And so, clinging to him, her lips met his in the first kiss that had ever passed between them.

Those Who Wait[1]

A faint draught from the hills found its way through the wide-flung door as the sun went down.  It fluttered the papers on the table, and stirred a cartoon upon the wall with a dry rustling as of wind in corn.

The man who sat at the table turned his face as it were mechanically towards that blessed breath from the snows.  His chin was propped on his hand.  He seemed to be waiting.

The light failed very quickly, and he presently reached out and drew a reading-lamp towards him.  The flame he kindled flickered upward, throwing weird shadows upon his lean, brown face, making the sunken hollows of his eyes look cavernous.

He turned the light away so that it streamed upon the open doorway.  Then he resumed his former position of sphinx-like waiting, his chin upon his hand.

Half an hour passed.  The day was dead.  Beyond the radius of the lamp there hung a pall of thick darkness—­a fearful, clinging darkness that seemed to wrap the whole earth.  The heat was intense, unstirred by any breeze.  Only now and then the cartoon on the wall moved as if at the touch of ghostly fingers, and each time there came that mocking whisper that was like wind in corn.

At length there sounded through the night the dull throbbing of a horse’s feet, and the man who sat waiting raised his head.  A gleam of expectancy shone in his sombre eyes.  Some of the rigidity went out of his attitude.