“It is your book,” she stammered.  “I did not know that it was yours when I took it down.  I—­I was looking at it while I was waiting for Clarence.”

“It is dry reading,” he remarked, which was not what he wished to say.

“And yet—­”

“Yes?”

“And yet you have read it twice.”  The confession had slipped to her lips.

She was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking down at him.  Still he did not look at her.  All the will that was left him averted his head.  And the seal of honor was upon his speech.  And he wondered if man were ever more tempted.

Then the evil spread its wings, and soared away into the night.  And the moment was past.  Peace seemed to come upon them both, quieting the tumult in their hearts, and giving them back their reason.  Respect like wise came to the girl,—­respect that was akin to awe.  It was he who spoke first.

“My mother has me how faithfully you nursed the Judge, Miss Carvel.  It was a very noble thing to do.”

“Not noble at all,” she replied hastily, “your mother did the most of it, And he is an old friend of my father—­”

“It was none the less noble,” said Stephen, warmly, “And he quarrelled with Colonel Carvel.”

“My father quarrelled with him,” she corrected.  “It was well that I should make some atonement.  And yet mine was no atonement, I love Judge Whipple.  It was a—­a privilege to see your mother every day—­oh, how he would talk of you!  I think he loves you better than any one on this earth.”

“Tell me about him,” said Stephen, gently.

Virginia told him, and into the narrative she threw the whole of her pent-up self.  How patient the Judge had been, and the joy he had derived from Stephen’s letters.  “You were very good to write to him so often,” she said.  It seemed like a dream to Stephen, like one of the many dreams of her, the mystery of which was of the inner life beyond our ken.  He could not recall a time when she had not been rebellious, antagonistic.  And now—­as he listened to her voice, with its exquisite low tones and modulations, as he sat there in this sacred intimacy, perchance to be the last in his life, he became dazed.  His eyes, softened, with supreme eloquence cried out that she, was his, forever and forever.  The magnetic force which God uses to tie the worlds together was pulling him to her.  And yet the Puritan resisted.

Then the door swung open, and Clarence Colfax, out of breath, ran into the room.  He stopped short when he saw them, his hand fell to his sides, and his words died on his lips.  Virginia did not stir.

It was Stephen who rose to meet him, and with her eyes the girl followed his motions.  The broad and loosely built frame of the Northerner, his shoulders slightly stooping, contrasted with Clarence’s slighter figure, erect, compact, springy.  The Southerner’s eye, for that moment, was flint struck with the spark from the steel.  Stephen’s face, thinned by illness, was grave.  The eyes kindly, yet penetrating.  For an instant they stood thus regarding each other, neither offering a hand.  It was Stephen who spoke first, and if there was a trace of emotion in his voice, one who was listening intently failed to mark it.