I know not which of the two of us was the more dumbfounded; but this I do know; that I was still speechless and fair witless when she swept me a low-dipped curtsy and gave me my greeting.

“I bid you good evening, Captain Ireton,” she said, coldly; and then with still more of the frost of unwelcome in her voice:  “To what may we be indebted for this honor?”

Now, chilling as these words were, they thrilled me to my finger-tips, for they were the first she had spoken to me since the night of my offending in the black gorge of the far-off western mountains.  None the less, they were blankly unanswerable, and had the door been open I should doubtless have vanished as I had come.  Of all the houses in the town this was surely the last I should have run to for refuge had I known the name of its master; and it was some upflashing of this thought that helped me find my tongue.

“I never guessed this was your father’s house,” I stammered, bowing low to match her curtsy.  “I beg you will pardon me, and let me go as I came.”

She laid a hand on the door-knob.  “Is—­is there any one here whom you would see?” she asked; and now her eyes did not meet mine, and I would think the chill had melted a little.

“No.  I was begging a night’s lodging of a friend whose house is full.  He sent me here with a note to—­ah—­to your father, as I suppose, though in his haste he did not mention the name.”

She held out her hand.  “Give me the letter.”

“Nay,” said I; “that would be but thankless work.  Knowing me, your father must needs conceive it his duty to denounce me.”

“Give it me!” she insisted; this with an impatient little stamp of the foot and an upglance of the compelling eyes that would have constrained me to do a far foolisher thing, had she asked it.

So I gave her the letter and stood aside, hat in hand, while she read it.  There were candles in their sconces over the mantel and she moved nearer to have the better light.  The soft glow of the candles fell upon her shining hair, and upon cheek and brow; and I could see her bosom rise and fall with the quick-coming breath, and the pulse throbbing in her fair white neck.  And with the seeing I became a fool of love again in very earnest, and was within a hair’s breadth of sinking honor and all else in an outpouring of such words as a man may say once to one woman in all the world—­and having said them may never unsay them.

’Twas a most practical little thing she did that saved me from falling headlong into this last ditch of dishonor.  Twisting the letter into a spill she stood on tiptoe to light it at one of the candles, saying:  “’Twas a foolish thing to put on paper, and might well hang the writer in such times as these.  He says you are a king’s man and well known to him, and you are neither.”  But when the letter was a crisp of blackened paper-ash she turned upon me, and once again the changeful eyes were cold and her words were stranger-formal.