In all his life Northrup had never looked upon the face of a sleeping woman, and it stirred him deeply. He became as rigid as marble; the heat beat upon him as it might have upon stone. And then--as such wild things do occur, his old, familiar dream came to him; he seemed _in_ the dream. He had at last opened one of those closed doors and was seeing what the secret room held! He was part of the dream as he was of his book in the making. He breathed lightly; he did not move--but he was overcome by waves of emotion that had never before even lapped his feet. At that instant Mary-Clare's eyes opened. For a moment they held his; then she turned, sighed, and he believed that she had not really awakened. Northrup rose stiffly and made his way to his room. "She was asleep!" he fiercely thought until he was safe behind his locked door! "Was she?" He had to face that in the silence of the hours after. "I'll know when I next meet her." This was almost a groan. CHAPTER IX Kathryn Morris, as the days of Northrup's absence stretched into weeks, grew more and more restless. She began to do some serious thinking, and while this developed her mentally, the growing pains hurt and she became twisted. Heretofore she had been borne along on a peaceful current. She was young and pretty and believed that everyone saw her as she wanted them to see her--a charming, an unusually charming girl. People had always responded to her slightest whim, but suddenly her own particular quarry had eluded her; did not even pine for her; was able to keep silent while he left her and his mother to think what they chose. At this moment Kathryn placed herself beside Helen Northrup as a timid débutante shrinks beside her chaperon. "And that old beast"--Kathryn in the privacy of her bedchamber could speak quite openly to herself--"that old beast, Doctor Manly, suggested that at forty I might be fat if----" Well, it didn't matter about the "if." Kathryn did a bit of mental arithmetic, using her fingers to aid her. What was the difference between twenty-four and forty? The difference seemed terrifyingly _little_. "A fat forty! Oh, good Lord!" Kathryn was in bed and it was nine-thirty in the morning! She sprang out and looked at herself in the mirror. "Well, my body hasn't found it out yet!" she whispered, and her pretty white teeth showed complacently. Then she sat down in a deep chair and took account of stock. That "fat-forty" was a mere panic. She would not think of it--but it loomed, nevertheless. Of course, for the time being, there was Sandy Arnold on the crest of one of his financial waves. Kathryn was level-headed enough not to lose sight of receding waves but then, on the other hand, the crest of a receding wave was better than to be left on the sands--fat and forty! And Northrup was displaying dangerous traits. A distinct chill shook Kathryn.