Abruptly Marcia looked up and announced, “I forgive you your disobedience.  I’m glad you came.  You can’t imagine how lonely it’s been.”  Her small nose puckered fastidiously as she added, “The company is odious and I hate the play and the hotels provide unfinished road-beds to sleep on and I’ve been headachy and altogether miserable.”  Then she broke off and laughed again, “Which will be about enough Jeremiad for the present.  Have you missed me?”

Paul Burton bent forward and studied the red tip of his cigar.  It seemed to him that he had missed her more than he had ever missed anyone else.  For the first time since the terrible day in the Street with its battalion of misfortunes, his heart felt at rest and his nerves quiet.

He tossed the cigar away and took her hands in his.  Deep in her eyes glowed a quiet tenderness and her breath quickened.  The man seated himself on the arm of her deep chair, passing one arm about her and holding her two hands close to her breast.  Her hat tilted back as he stooped to kiss her, but she did not appear to resent that disarrangement.

“I have missed you terribly,” he said and the glow in her pupils heightened in brightness.

Marcia was content.  After all, her dream was coming true.  Here in this old room of an old house, where other generations had made courtly love, he would tell her that resolution had come to his heart, driving out weak vacillation, and resolution spelt her name.  It was worth having been lonely for.  Here were just the two of them in the light of a fire on a hearth—­emblem of home.

On their two faces, close together, the blaze threw warm little dashes of its own color.  Into the heart of Marcia Terroll stole belief once more, and the cheer of the glowing coals.

CHAPTER XXVII

For a while they were content to remain silent; and afterward the man said, “I’ve been needing you, Marcia.”

The fingers that he held tightened a little on his own.  Now she thought he would tell her that he had given his problem the test of bold reflection and could come to her with his mind made up—­and the decision was that he needed her.  In the hope her loneliness saw an opening vista of happiness, but his next words were not of that.

“You have read the papers?” he questioned.  “You know what has happened?”

Of course she knew and her heart had been full of grief for him in these days of distress.  Had she not written him—­and torn up unmailed—­a score of letters in which she had told him tenderly and unreservedly all she felt?  But when she had seen him tonight she had forgotten that, remembering only that he had searched for her and found her and come to her.

Now that he spoke of misfortune to himself and his family she wanted to give him only sympathy and comfort and love—­yet coming like a sudden, chilling draught, a conviction struck in upon her heart and left it shuddering—­with all its tender new hopes shattered.