“My own brave girl!” Jim said.  “I know what courage it took to have you tell me this!  It will never be known to any one else, sweetheart, and we will bury it in our hearts forever.  Kiss me, dearest, and promise me that my little wife will stop crying!”

For a moment it was as if she tried to push him away.

“Jim,” she whispered, tears running down her face, “have you thought—­are you sure?”

“Quite sure, sweetheart,” he said soothingly and tenderly.  “Why, Julie, wouldn’t you forgive me anything I might have done when I was only an ignorant little boy?”

Julia tightened her arms about him, and sobbed desperately for a long while.  Then her breathing quieted, and she let Jim dry her eyes with his own handkerchief, and listened, with an occasional long sigh, to his eager, confident plans.  They were still talking quietly when the street door was flung open and Miss Toland came in, on a rush of fresh air.

“Rain!” said Miss Toland.  “Terrible night!  Not an umbrella in the Parker house until Clem came home—­it’s quarter to ten!”

“Congratulate us, Aunt Sanna,” said Jim, rising to his feet with his arm still about Julia.  “Julia has promised to marry me!”

End of Part One

PART TWO

CHAPTER I

Yet Dr. James Studdiford, walking down to his club, an hour later, with the memory of his aunt’s joyous congratulations ringing in his ears, and of Julia’s last warm little kiss upon his cheek, was perhaps more miserable than he had been before in the course of his life.  Julia was his girl—­his own girl—­and the thrill of her submission, the enchanting realization that she loved him, rose over and over again in his heart, like the rising of deep waters—­ only to wash against the firm barrier of that hideous Fact.

Jim could do nothing with the Fact.  It did not seem to belong to him, or to Julia, to their love and future together, or to her gallant, all-enduring past.  Julia was Julia—­that was the only significant thing, the sweetest, purest, cleverest woman he knew.  And she loved him!  A rush of ecstasy flooded his whole being; how sweet she was when he made her say she loved him—­when she surrendered her hands, when she raised her gravely smiling blue eyes!  What a little wife she would be, what a gay little comrade, and some day, perhaps, what a mother!

Again the Fact.  After such a little interval of radiant peace it seemed to descend upon him with an ugly violence.  It was true; nothing that they could do now would alter it.  And, of course, the thing was serious.  If anything in life was serious, this was.  It was frightful—­it seemed sacrilegious to connect such things for an instant with Julia.  Dear little Julia, with her crisp little uniforms, her authority in the classroom, her charming deference to Aunt Sanna!  And she loved him—–­