"You--you ought to. I--it's a very pretty table." "I value it only because it holds your tears." Fox was unfolding a handkerchief. It was a very large handkerchief. He put it into her seeking hand. "I remember another occasion when you had to borrow a handkerchief," he said. "Do you remember it, Sally?" She nodded and began to mop her eyes. "Mercy! I--I didn't want a sheet, Fox," she said. Fox smiled. "I didn't know. You might." His voice was not steady as he went on. "Sally," he whispered, "I--I want you. I want you!" She gave another hysterical laugh. "Well," she cried, "anybody w--would th--think that y--you had me." "Have I, Sally dear?" he asked, still in that low whisper. "Have I?" He bent over her neck. That was the only part of her that he could reach--that neck with its little tendrils of waving hair. "Oh, don't!" she cried hastily. "Don't, Fox. You haven't got me--yet," she added in a whisper which was barely audible. But Fox heard it. "It--it isn't because--because you are sorry for me?" she asked in a very small voice. "No," Fox was smiling again; but, as Sally had her eyes hidden, of course she did not see it. "I am sorry for you as I can be, but that isn't the reason. Guess again." "Are you _sure_, Fox? _Very_ sure?" she asked. "Say that you are, Fox," she whispered. "Can't you please say that you are?" "I am sure." "And it isn't be--because m--my father," the small voice asked again, "because my father is a--" "No. That isn't the reason either. I'm quite sure, Sally." Sally's head was still down on the table and she was wiping away her tears. "But, Fox," she protested, "you ought not to, you know." "I ought," he replied indignantly. "I ought to have done it long ago. Why not?" Sally smiled at the table. "M--my father," she returned, not at all dismally, "would disgrace you--very likely. He's a d--" He interrupted her. "I don't care what he is, Sally," he said softly. "I don't care about anything--but this." "And my brother is a gambler," she went on, in a disgracefully happy voice, considering what she was saying,--"with not much hope that he will be anything else. I don't deceive myself." "Only the greater reason," he said, more softly yet. "I want you, Sally." "Do you? After that?" "You may believe it--dearest." She gave a sudden, happy little cry. "Oh, I believe it. I want to believe it. I have wanted to for more than two years--ever--since the night of the fire." She lifted her head, the tears shining in her eyes; something else shining there. "Then I don't care for--for Margaret--or--or anybody else; or any--any--thing"--her voice sank to a whisper once more--"but you." Sally raised her eyes slowly to his. They were shy eyes, and very tender. And Fox looked into their depths and saw--but what he saw concerns only him and Sally. He seemed satisfied with what he saw. He held her closer. Sally's eyes filled slowly and overflowed at last, and she shut them.