In a stride, hardly knowing what he did, he folded the girl in his arms. She lay therein for an instant as though bewitched by the exquisite wonder of this consummation of her fondest, maddest dreams; then in a breath became a woman reanimate and wild with love, clinging to him with all her strength, in an ecstasy of impassioned tenderness. Bending his head, Matthias found her lips. "My dear, dear girl!" he murmured. "Oh," she breathed, "I have loved you always--always!" "If I had only known, if I had only guessed--!" "How could you? _I_ didn't know ... not till a little while ago.... And even then, I couldn't have told you ... only the thought of losing you ... my dear, my dear!" "I never guessed...." "You're not sorry? You're not angry with me--?" "Angry? I adore you!" "You will love me always?" "Always and forever." "And never send me away from you?" "You shall never leave me but of your own will." "I think I was going mad with the thought of losing you!" "My beloved girl!..." The dusky stillness of the room was murmurous with whispers, sighs, terms of endearment half smothered and all but inaudible. To these a foreign and alarming sound: a rapping at the door. Matthias lifted his head, wincing from the interruption. The girl in his arms moved feebly, as if to disengage. He held her for a moment still more close. Her heart sounded sonorously against his bosom. "Hush!" he said in a low and warning voice. And then the rapping was repeated. At once he released her. She moved away, blushing and dishevelled, the fragrant freshness of her starched linen waist a crumpled disorder, her hair in disarray; her crimson face one of many evidences of the tumult of her senses. In the hallway a man's voice said: "He must be in. There's a light--" A woman answered impatiently: "Of course he's in; but the chances are he's asleep." She called in a louder tone: "Jack--Jack Matthias!" Recognizing the voice of his aunt, that person groaned aloud--"O Lord!"--stole a glance at Joan, hesitated, shrugged, as if to say: There's no help for it! Then he answered the door. Helena swept in with a swirl of impatient skirts. "Good heavens!" she cried. "What ails you, Jackie? We knocked half a dozen times. Were you--?" Her glance encountering Joan, the words dried on her lips. Tankerville, at her heels, jerked a motor gauntlet from his fat hand in order to grasp that of Matthias. "Surprised you--eh?" he chuckled--"getting in so late. Well, it's all accidental. We were bound home--been visiting the Hastings for a week, you know--but the car broke down just this side of Poughkeepsie and delayed us and...." He became distressfully aware of his wife's silence, simultaneously ascertained the cause of it, and cut his speech short in full stride. Matthias laughed a little, quietly: no good trying to carry off this situation; by many a clue aside from Joan's confusion, they were betrayed.