"I see," he said sympathetically. And back into his memory flashed that scene with her by the stove in the dusky bar. And then he remembered her as she stood in her red hood and cloak staring at the closed door of the room where her dead father lay. And he remembered touching her frosty little hand, and the incident of the watch. "I never went back there," he mused, half to himself, looking curiously at the girl before him. "I wanted to go--but I never did." "No, you never came back," she said slowly. "I couldn't. I was only a kid, you see. My mother wouldn't let me go there that summer. And father and I joined a club down South so we did not go back for the duck-shooting. That is how it happened." She nodded, gravely, but said nothing to him about her faith in his return, how confidently, how patiently she had waited through that long, long summer for the boy who never returned. "I did think of you often," he volunteered, smiling at her. "I thought of you, too. I hoped you would come and let me teach you to sail a boat." "That's so! I remember now. You were going to show me how." "Have you learned to sail a boat?" "No. I'll tell you what I'll do, Athalie, I'll come down this summer--" "But I don't live there any more." "That's so. Where do you live?" She hesitated, and his eyes fell for the first time from her youthful and engaging face to the clothes she wore--black clothes that seemed cheap even to a boy who had no knowledge of feminine clothing. She was all in rusty black, hat, gloves, jacket and skirt; and the austere and slightly mean setting made the contrast of her hair and skin the more fresh and vivid. "I live," she replied diffidently, "with my two sisters in West Fifty-fourth Street. I am stenographer and typewriter in the offices of a department store." "I'd like to come to see you," he said impulsively. "Shall I--when vacation begins?" "Are you still at school?" He laughed: "I'm at Harvard. I'm down for Easter just now. Tell me, Athalie, would you care to have me come to see you when I return?" "If you would care to come." "I surely would!" he said cordially, offering his hand in adieu--"I want to ask you a lot of questions and we can talk over all those jolly old times,"--as though years of comradeship lay behind them instead of an hour or two. Then his glance fell on the slim hand he was shaking, and he saw the strap-watch which he had given her still clasped around her wrist. "You wear that yet?--that old shooting-watch of mine!" he laughed. She smiled. "I'll give you a better one than that next Christmas," he said, taking out a little notebook and pencil. "I'll write it down--'strap-watch for Athalie Greensleeve next Christmas'--there it is! And--will you give me your address?" She gave it; he noted it, closed his little Russia-leather book with a snap, and pocketed it. "I'm glad I saw you," said the girl; "I hope you won't forget me. I am late; I must go--I suppose--"