“What is it?” Irene asked.

“A gentleman has called, Miss Irene.”

“A gentleman!”

“Yes, miss; and wants to see you.”

“Did he send his name?”

“No, miss.”

“Do you know him, Margaret?”

“I can’t say, miss, for certain, but—­” she stopped.

“But what, Margaret?”

“It may be just my thought, miss; but he looks for all the world as if he might be—­”

She paused again.

“Well?”

“I can’t say it, Miss Irene, no how, and I won’t.  But the gentleman asked for you.  What shall I tell him?”

“That I will see him in a moment,” answered Irene.

Margaret retired.

The face of Irene, which flushed at first, now became pale as ashes.  A wild hope trembled in her heart.

“Excuse me for a few minutes,” she said to Mrs. Everet, and, rising, left the room.

It was as Irene had supposed.  On entering the parlor, a gentleman advanced to meet her, and she stood face to face with Hartley Emerson!

“Irene,” he said, extending his hand.

“Hartley,” fell in an irrepressible throb from her lips as she put her hand in his.

“I could not return to New York without seeing you again,” said Mr. Emerson, as he stood holding the hand of Irene.  “We met so briefly, and were thrown apart again so suddenly, that some things I meant to say were left unspoken.”

He led her to a seat and sat down beside her, still looking intently in her face.  Irene was far from being as calm as when they sat together the day before.  A world of new hopes had sprung up in her heart since then.  She had lain half asleep and half awake nearly all night, in a kind of delicious dream, from which the morning awoke her with a cold chill of reality.  She had dreamed again since the sun had risen; and now the dream was changing into the actual.

“Have I done wrong in this, Irene?” he asked.

And she answered,

“No, it is a pleasure to meet you, Hartley.”

She had passed through years of self-discipline, and the power acquired during this time came to her aid.  And so she was able to answer with womanly dignity.  It was a pleasure to meet him there, and she said so.

“There are some things in the past, Irene,” said Mr. Emerson, “of which I must speak, now that I can do so.  There are confessions that I wish to make.  Will you hear me?”

“Better,” answered Irene, “let the dead past bury its dead.”

“I do not seek to justify myself, but you, Irene.”

“You cannot alter the estimate I have made of my own conduct,” she replied.  “A bitter stream does not flow from a sweet fountain.  That dead, dark, hopeless past!  Let it sleep if it will!”

“And what, then, of the future?” asked Mr. Emerson.

“Of the future!” The question startled her.  She looked at him with a glance of eager inquiry.