"All right," returned Grace calmly. "We can take Anna May and Elizabeth with us. It's awfully late for them. I promised Mrs. Angerell I'd take good care of them. They absolutely refused to go when Father and Mother went." Tom could not help looking his disappointment. Nevertheless the two little girls were favorites of his, so he forgave them for being the innocent means of frustrating his intention of having Grace to himself. "I'm going back to Washington to-morrow night, Grace," he said, as he took her hand for a moment in parting. "May I come to see you to-morrow afternoon?" "Yes, of course, Tom." Grace could not refuse the plea of his gray eyes. "All right. I'll drop in about four o'clock." "Very well. Good night, Tom." Grace could not repress a little impatient sigh. "He's going to ask me again," was her reflection, "but there is only one answer that I can ever give him." CHAPTER XVI THE LAST WORD While Anne Pierson's wedding day had dawned with a light snow on the ground, the weather underwent a considerable change during the night, and the next morning broke, gray and threatening. Heavy, sullen clouds dropped low in the sky, and by four o'clock that afternoon a raw, dispiriting winter rain had set in, accompanied by a moaning wind that made the day seem doubly dreary. Promptly at four o'clock Grace saw Tom swing up the walk without an umbrella. His black raincoat, buttoned up to his chin, was infinitely becoming to his fair Saxon type of good looks, and Grace could not repress a tiny thrill of satisfaction that this strong, handsome man cared for her. The next second she dismissed the thought as unworthy. She welcomed Tom, however, with a gentle friendliness, partly due to his good looks, that caused his eyes to flash with new hope. Perhaps Grace cared a little after all. He had rarely seen her so kind since their carefree days of boy and girl friendship, when there had been no barrier of unrequited love between them. "Come and sit by the fire, Tom," invited Grace. "I love an open fire on a dark, rainy day like this." She motioned him to a chair opposite her own at the other side of the fireplace. Tom seated himself, and the two began to talk of the wedding, Oakdale, their friends, everything in fact that led away from the thoughts that lay nearest the young man's heart. Grace skilfully kept the conversation on impersonal topics. By doing so she hoped to make Tom understand that she did not wish to discuss what had long been a sore subject between them. So the two young people talked on and on, while outside the rain fell in torrents, and the dark day began to merge into an early twilight.