"No. Mr. Bradley had to go early, and just as he was taking his leave brother stepped in and asked your father to help him with an important matter—some abstract of title, or something of the sort, and they went out and he didn’t come back. I don’t want to distress you, but your mother said that he walked the floor nearly all night." "Did she? And George knows more than he is willing to tell. But why do they try to shield me? It would be all right to shield mother if anything were wrong, but if there’s a burden, I ought to help bear it." She besought him not to be worried, assuring him that nothing had gone very far wrong and that everything would come right. The clearness and the strength of her mind, her individuality, her strength of character, always had a quick influence upon him, and he threw off the heavier part of his worry and they talked of other matters, of the reception which he had attended the night before. He repeated a part of a stupid address delivered by a prominent man, and they laughed at it, he declaring that nearly all men, no matter how prominent or bright, were usually dull at a reception. And, after a time, she asked: "What sort of a man is Mr. Goyle?" "Oh, he’s all right, I suppose; smart, full of odd conceits. I don’t know him very well. He comes into the down-town office quite frequently, but he rarely has much to say to me. George seems to be devoted to him." Florence shook her head, deploring the intimacy. "I don’t like him," she said. "And Agnes says she hates him. She snaps him up every time he speaks to her." She looked at Howard, and saw that his worry was returning upon him. She put the hair back from his forehead, affection’s most instinctive by-play, and said that he must not be downcast at a mere nothing, a passing whim on the part of his father. "And it was only a whim," she added. "But whims make an atmosphere," he replied. "Not ours, Howard—not yours, not mine. Love makes our atmosphere." "Yes," he said, putting his arm about her, "our breath of life. Florence, last night you were depressed, and now I am heavy." Their heads, bent forward, touched each other. "And your love is dearer to me now than ever before." Their faces were turned from the hall door. The Judge silently entered, and, seeing them, started toward them, making motions with his hands as if he would tear them apart. But Howard, after a brief pause, spoke again, and the old man halted, gazing at them. "Florence, you asked me, last night, if anything could separate us, and now I ask you that same question. Could anything part us?" "No," she said, "not man, not woman, nothing but God, and he has bound us together." "With silken cords woven in the loom of eternity," he replied; and the Judge wheeled about, and, with a sob, was gone, unseen. "What was that?" Florence asked, looking round. "It sounded like a sob." "We were not listening for sobs and should not have heard them," he replied. "It wasn’t anything."