“It’s enough that you should be here now,” he went on, bravely, his voice steady, though his hand shook.  “Nothing so wonderful as your staying could ever actually happen.  It’s just a light coming into a dark room and out again.  One day, long ago—­I never forgot it—­some apple-blossoms blew by me as I passed an orchard; and it’s like that, too.  But, oh, my dear, when you go you’ll leave a fragrance in my heart that will last!”

She turned toward him, her face suffused with a rosy light.  “You’d rather have died than have said that to me once,” she cried.  “I’m glad you’re weak enough now to confess it!”

He sank down again into his chair and his arms fell heavily on the desk.  “Confess it!” he cried, despairingly.  “And you don’t deny that you’re going away again—­so it’s true!  I wish I hadn’t realized it so soon.  I think I’d rather have tried to fool myself about it a little longer!”

“Joe,” she cried, in a voice of great pain, “you mustn’t feel like that!  How do you know I’m going away again?  Why should I want the old house put in order unless I mean to stay?  And if I went, you know that I could never change; you know how I’ve always cared for you—­”

“Yes,” he said, “I do know how.  It was always the same and it always will be, won’t it?”

“I’ve shown that,” she returned, quickly.

“Yes.  You say I know how you’ve cared for me—­and I do.  I know how.  It’s just in one certain way—­Jonathan and David—­”

“Isn’t that a pretty good way, Joe?”

“Never fear that I don’t understand!” He got to his feet again and looked at her steadily.

“Thank you, Joe.”  She wiped sudden tears from her eyes.

“Don’t you be sorry for me,” he said.  “Do you think that `passing the love of women’ isn’t enough for me?”

“No,” she answered, humbly.

“I’ll have people at work on the old house to-morrow,” he began.  “And for the—­”

“I’ve kept you so long!” she interrupted, helped to a meek sort of gayety by his matter-of-fact tone.  “Good-night, Joe.”  She gave him her hand.  “I don’t want you to come with me.  It isn’t very late and this is Canaan.”

“I want to come with you, however,” he said, picking up his hat.  “You can’t go alone.”

“But you are so tired, you—­”

She was interrupted.  There were muffled, flying footsteps on the stairs, and a shabby little man ran furtively into the room, shut the door behind him, and set his back against it.  His face was mottled like a colored map, thick lines of perspiration shining across the splotches.

“Joe,” he panted, “I’ve got Nashville good, and he’s got me good, too;—­I got to clear out.  He’s fixed me good, damn him! but he won’t trouble nobody—­”

Joe was across the room like a flying shadow.

“Quiet!” His voice rang like a shot, and on the instant his hand fell sharply across the speaker’s mouth.  “In there, Happy!”