'We'll drop the subject, I think. My cigar's done, and you've smoked as much as is good for you. You can do as you like, but I'm going inside.'
Their footsteps sounded down the gravel-path; then the sound ceased; they had gone in by the drawing-room window.
Gladys had never once altered her position; she did not alter it now. The moon rose high in the purple sky, and touched her head with threads of silver. It was as though gray hairs had come upon her while she knelt. The sudden turning of the door-handle, and a quick step upon the threshold, aroused her. It was Alfred come for an easier coat. The people were gone.
'What—Gladys!' he cried. She rose stiffly to her feet, and confronted him with her back to the moonlight. 'Up here—alone?'
'You didn't miss me, then?' Her tone was low and hoarse—the words ran into one another in their hurried, eager utterance.
'Why, no,' cried Alfred; 'to tell you the truth, I didn't.'
He seemed to her in better spirits than he
