“Although I don’t understand why such a good man at his job should be practicing in a little one-horse place like Monkshaven,” retorted Geoffrey maliciously.

“Probably he went there on account of his wife’s health,” suggested Elisabeth.  “He says she is an invalid.”

“Oh, well”—­Geoffrey yielded unwillingly—­“I suppose you’ll go, Sara.  But if the experiment isn’t a success you must come back to us at once.  Is that a bargain?”

Sara hesitated.

“Promise,” commanded Geoffrey.  “Or”—­firmly—­“I’m hanged if we let you go at all.”

“Very well,” agreed Sara meekly.  “I’ll promise.”

“I hope the experiment will be an utter failure,” observed Tim, later on, when he and Sara were alone together.  He spoke with an oddly curt—­almost inimical—­inflection in his voice.

“Now that’s unkind of you, Tim,” she protested smilingly.  “I thought you were a good enough pal not to want to chortle over me—­as I know Geoffrey will—­should the thing turn out a frost!”

“Well, I’m not, then,” he returned roughly.

The churlish tones were so unlike Tim that Sara looked up at him in some amazement.  He was staring down at her with a strange, awakened expression in his eyes; his face was very white and his mouth working.

With a sudden apprehension of what was impending, she sprang up, stretching out her hand as though to ward it off.

“No—­no, Tim.  It isn’t—­don’t say it’s that——­”

He caught her hand and held it between both his.

“But it is that,” he said, speaking very fast, the serenity of his face all broken up by the surge of emotion that had gripped him.  “It is that.  I love you.  I didn’t know it till you spoke of going away.  Sara—­”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She broke in hastily.  “Don’t say any more, Tim—­please don’t!”

In the silence that followed the two young faces peered at each other—­the one desperate with love, the other full of infinite regret and pleading.

At last—­

“It’s no use, then?” said Tim dully.  “You don’t care?”

“I’m afraid I don’t—­not like that.  I thought we were friends—­just friends, Tim,” she urged.

Tim lifted his head, and she saw that somehow, in the last few minutes, he had grown suddenly older.  His gay, smiling mouth had set itself sternly; the beautiful boyish face had become a man’s.

“I thought so, too,” he said gently.  “But I know now that what I feel for you isn’t friendship.  It’s”—­with a short, grim laugh—­“something much more than that.  Tell me, Sara—­will there ever be any chance for me?”

She hesitated.  She was so genuinely fond of him that she hated to give him pain.  Looking at him, standing before her in his splendid young manhood, she wondered irritably why she didn’t love him.  He was pre-eminently loveable.

He caught eagerly at her hesitation.