Jeremy was Bowdlerizing these, when he stopped and put down his pen. The floor-boards in the hallway were creaking intermittently but progressively. Through the noise of the wind he thought that he could catch fragments of a whispered colloquy. Then, quite plainly, there was a retreating tread, which, however, left something. What? An infernal machine? Infernal machines do not linger, striving and forcing themselves to the determining action; theirs is a simple and direct method. And Jeremy could feel, through the noisy darkness, the struggle of a will, agonizingly fighting for expression, through dread. Himself, he was not conscious of fear. But every nerve was tense. He sat looking at the door. For what seemed an interminable time nothing happened. But the Something outside drew slowly, painfully nearer. The knob of his door moved, a thing suddenly inspired to life. Jeremy gathered himself. It turned. The door was drawn open swiftly. A blur came upon Jeremy’s vision. His heart bumped once in a thick, dull way, then swelled intolerably. He half rose, sat down again heavily. His eyes cleared and the clogged blood in his temples flowed again. She stood framed against the stirring, whispering darkness beyond. Her breath came quick and light. She was white to the lips, and more lovely even than the dreams of her, cherished through all those aching years. “Jem,” she said. “Marcia!” She made one eager step forward. A vagrant gust, ranging the darkness, caught the door and drove it savagely to, behind her. She threw a startled glance back. It was as if the impalpable fates had cut off the last chance of withdrawal. “I have come back to you.” The sweet precision of her speech was the unforgotten same, blessedly unchanged in any intonation. But wonder held Jeremy speechless. He stood, his hands knuckling the desk, and devoured her with his eyes. “Will you not speak to me?” she said, with a quick sorrowful little intake of the breath. “You frighten me. You look so strange. Have you been ill?” At that he came forward and took her hand, and drew out a chair for her. “Not ill,” he heard himself say in a surprisingly commonplace voice. “Sit down.” She shook her head gently. “I can look at you better, standing.” Her candid eyes swept over him. She saw a face thinner and more drawn than she had remembered it; bitten into by stern lines about the mouth; the eyes tired but more thoughtful, and just over the temple nearest her a fleck of gray in the dark sweep of his hair. Involuntarily she put forth a swift hand and touched it. “Oh, Jem!” she whispered with quivering lips. He seemed to brace himself against her light touch. “That?” he said. “Oh, that is n’t anything.” “How came it there?” “Honest toil, I hope,” he returned cheerfully. Her inventory was completed with a smile. “You are quite as carefully turned out as ever,” she commented. “Habit.” “Oh, no! Not habit alone. Character. And you stand as straight and square as you used.”