Cahill looked down at the severely beautiful face beside him, and for an instant the feeling of dread and apprehension which had swept over him that afternoon returned with redoubled force. He felt again the sudden, awful shock the sight of that girl’s face had been to him, the intense relief on discovering his mistake. He realized acutely and for the first time just how impossible it would ever be to tell her of that episode in his life which the girl’s face had recalled, and which he had once felt impelled to tell his father, and he determined to make up to her in every way that a man can, for his silence. The possibility which had faced him for a moment, of losing her, had made her inexpressibly dear to him, and in that instant he had realized passionately all that the loss of her would mean to him. He had felt unutterably glad that the danger had been averted and that she need never know. He did not mean to deceive her, but as he held her hand and looked at her, he had but one thought, one fierce desire--to keep that look of trust and happiness forever on her earnest and beautiful face. He leaned forward slightly. “How can I tell anything about any other woman when _you_ are there?” he said, argumentatively, smiling at her. “You didn’t expect me to take much interest in the _timbre_ of her voice or her trill when you had just told me----” “Oh, yes--I know--I never told you anything,” objected the girl, laughing and drawing away her hands. “And you were so dramatic--so curious when you met her, that if I had--known you longer, I think absolutely I would have demanded an explanation. Isn’t that what they say in books--‘demand an explanation?’” He shook his head. “I don’t know what they say in books. No book ever told me anything about _this_!” The girl turned her shining, happy eyes upon him. “How unutterably silly of me,” she said, breathlessly. “For a moment you said she was so like someone, and she had told me her story, I hardly know what I thought--imagined.” She spoke in little, broken pauses, and as she finished she laid her hand timidly on Cahill’s arm. “You said she reminded you of----” The young man laughed happily. “The mere idea!” he said, touching her hands softly, and then he added lightly, as they moved toward the door: “What she reminded me of was an episode in my life that happened long ago and which was very uninteresting and unimportant.” HER DECISION Miss Eva Hungerford was having a _mauvais quart-d’heure_, or to speak more exactly, _une mauvaise demi-heure_. She was lying in a long chair near her dressing-table, the pale-green satin cushions tucked closely around her, and her hands held tightly over her eyes to keep out any ray of sunlight that might enter the spectrally darkened room.