"Besides, beloved, there are things that I want to say; things that _need_ to be said... Your journey is nearly over, our meeting is close at hand, and if the truth were known there's more fear than expectation in your heart! I know you too well not to realise that--_but the fear must go_! Get it out of your head once for all, little girl, that you have anything to dread from me. I want you, I want you badly, but most of all I want your happiness. That sounds the sort of thing one reads in books--just a bit too lofty and impersonal to be true, but if you come to worry it out, it's only a higher kind of selfishness. Once love with your own heart and soul, love some one, that is to say, _more than yourself_, and as the most obvious of consequences, happiness is impossible for yourself unless it has first and foremost filled that other heart. Don't worry yourself by any idea that you are pledged to me, in honour bound, or any nonsense of the kind. You are _not_; you are as free as air. If you should happen to like another man better than me (you won't!) I'd help you to him. If you don't want me (you will!) I'll stand aside. Dear little girl, be aisy! I'm on your side. "That `mad' letter of yours was delicious sense. The veritable Katrine revealed herself more therein than in any letter I have yet received. And your little discourse on tenderness--that touched me! It is a quality which, as you say, is wanting in the love of many men, and the lack of it leaves a record on the faces of weary women. But, after all, you know, the doing or undoing, whichever you choose to call it, is in the main the fault of some other woman in the past! Why do mothers spoil their boys instead of training them in the small domestic kindnesses and attentions which will be so valuable later on? If I had a son... upon my life I believe I'd spoil him too! "Seriously though, Katrine, it must be pre-eminently tenderness which is filling my heart today, for I _can_ imagine; I _can_ understand! I am so sorry for you, poor, puzzled girl! Is that a good augury for the future? "I shall come in to see you at the Middleton bungalow the day you arrive. No club meetings for me. Just an hour or two for rest and refreshment, and then--enter Jim Blair! Poor little girl, are you trembling in your shoes? If only I could convince you of my sincerity! Was it for nothing, Katrine, that my heart went out to you across the seas; was it for nothing that my cry touched your heart; was it for nothing that after years of block and difficulty, the way was opened out which brings you here to me? Go on in faith for one week longer! "Jim Blair." The letter fell from Katrine's hands and fluttered to the ground. She hid her face in her hands. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.