the stream of my joy were due to a natural reaction from the tremendous strain of the past weeks, mere morbid fancies. When at length I reached my room at the Club I sat looking out at the rain falling on the shining pavements under the arc-lights. Though waves of heat caused by some sudden recollection or impatient longing still ran through my body, a saner joy of anticipation was succeeding emotional tumult, and I reflected that Nancy had been right in insisting that we walk circumspectly in spite of passion. After all, I had outwitted circumstance, I had gained the prize, I could afford to wait a little. We should talk it over to-morrow,--no, to-day. The luminous face of the city hall clock reminded me that midnight was long past.... I awoke with the consciousness of a new joy, suddenly to identify it with Nancy. She was mine! I kept repeating it as I dressed; summoning her, not as she had lain in my arms in the darkness--though the intoxicating sweetness of that pervaded me--but as she had been before the completeness of her surrender, dainty, surrounded by things expressing an elusive, uniquely feminine personality. I could afford to smile at the weather, at the obsidian sky, at the rain still falling persistently; and yet, as I ate my breakfast, I felt a certain impatience to verify what I knew was a certainty, and hurried to the telephone booth. I resented the instrument, its possibilities of betrayal, her voice sounded so matter-of-fact as she bade me good morning and deplored the rain. “I'll be out as soon as I can get away,” I said. “I have a meeting at three, but it should be over at four.” And then I added irresistibly: “Nancy, you're not sorry? You--you still--?” “Yes, don't be foolish,” I heard her reply, and this time the telephone did not completely disguise the note for which I strained. I said something more, but the circuit was closed....