“You don’t really mean that,” she said quietly. “We are too good friends for that sort of thing. Yes, I believe we are good friends, although our friendship has not all been open and straightforward. But I’m glad we’ve had it, Colin, and I don’t want to be sorry afterwards.” “I never supposed you could love me,” he said sadly, “but since you allow the friendship, will you let me write to you? You’re the only friend I feel I want to write to while I’m trying to prove that my way is the right one.” She considered before she said, “I’d like to hear from you, but you must not write. It will only make trouble. And now I must say good-bye and—good luck.” She put out her hand. He held it, striving with himself. Then he said a little unsteadily, “I think you must know that I have cared for you all along, and because I may never see you again, will you—will you let me kiss you—once?” “But, Colin, you understand that I—I don’t love you?” “Too well!” She could just see that his face was white. She made an almost imperceptible movement, and it was not of refusal. A moment later he was gone. When the sound of his footsteps had ceased, Kitty stirred. “Am I crying?” she said to herself, and wiped her eyes. “Poor Colin, poor boy! I wonder if he will write, after all.” She started for home. “And I thought I had sort of got over the London longing,” she sighed. CHAPTER II BY taking the path through the wood she had cut off a wide curve of the main road. She was nearly home. Already the few remaining lights of the village bade her welcome back to dullness. “Five years!” she said to herself, “and I may live in it for fifty more.” Kitty Carstairs scarcely remembered her mother. She had been brought—or allowed to bring herself up—by her father, a Glasgow journalist of brilliant parts and erratic methods, a wretched manager of his worldly affairs, a delightful guest, an entertaining host, and altogether a very lovable fellow. Kitty adored him, and ignored his weaknesses and eccentricities. When he died after a long illness, she wished she might follow him quickly. He left a little money, and just enough debts to eat it up, five MSS. of novels, two collections of travel sketches, and a play—all in a more or less unfinished state—and a letter to Kitty’s only relatives, the brother and sister of his dead wife. Kitty never saw the contents of that letter; all she knew was that it seemed to procure her a home with John Corrie and his sister in the village of Dunford.