A dark flush came to the man’s face, and when he spoke it was with an honest shame and gratitude in his voice that would have surprised the women who had only known him in his later years.

“You are generous, Harriet,” he said.  “You were always the most generous girl in the world!”

More stirred than she wished to show herself, Harriet walked on, and there was a silence.

“I hunted for you,” Royal said presently.  “For months it seemed to me that we must meet, that we must talk!  I came back from Canada in August, I went to the house; it was taken by strangers.  I went to Fred’s paper; he had been gone for months!”

“I know!” Harriet nodded.  The wonderful smoky blue eyes met his for a second, and there was something of sympathy now in their look.  “I know, Roy!  It was,” she shuddered, “it was a wretched business, all round!”

“Linda and Fred made it hard for you?” he asked.

“Oh, no!  They were angels.  But of course in their eyes, and mine, too—­I was marked.”

Silence.  Royal Blondin gave her a glance full of distress and compunction.  But he did not speak, and it was Harriet who ended the pause.

“Well, that’s what a little girl of eighteen may do with her life!” she said.  “I have been a fool—­I have made a wreck of mine!  Ambition and youth went out of me then.  It wasn’t anything actual, Roy.  But I have known a hundred times why when I should have courage I had nothing but fear, when I should have self-confidence I failed myself.  Something in my soul got broken!”

“You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” Royal Blondin said, steadily, “you are established here, they all adore you!  Why do you say that your life is a wreck?”

“I am the daughter of Professor Field,” said Harriet, “and at twenty-seven I am the paid companion of Mrs. Richard Carter’s daughter!  Oh, well—­I was happy enough to have the opportunity.  I had studied French, you know; and Mrs. Rogers took me abroad with her.  She was an outrageous old lady, but not curious!  No reasonable woman could live with her—­I made myself endure it.  Then I went to her daughter, Mrs. Igleheart, the famous suffragette, for two years.  And the Carters took me from her.”  She shrugged indifferently.  “What of yourself?  Where have you been?”

But he was not quite ready to drop the personal note.

“Harriet, now that we have met, we’ll be friends?  My life now is among these people; you’ll not be sorry if we occasionally meet?”

“In this casual way—­no, we can stand that!” she agreed.  The fears of the night rose like mist, melted away.  It was bad enough, but it was not what her inflamed and fantastic apprehension had made it.  He was no revengeful villain, after all.  He did not mean to harm her.