The voice of ambitious, inspirited youth sang in her tones, half appealing though they were. Came an embarrassed stillness between them. Hal’s face, strong, even stern in its self-repression was turned partly away from her. The bleakness of his suffering young soul peered forth from his deep blue eyes as he stared steadily across the dimpling sun-touched waves. “Nothing matters in life but love. To love and to be loved in return,” he said slowly, but with a kind of fatalistic decision. “You’ll love someone, someday, even though you can’t love me.” The shadow on Marjorie’s face deepened as she listened. It was almost as though in a flash of second sight Hal were telling her a fortune she did not care to hear. “When love truly comes to you, then you’ll understand what you can’t understand now,” he ended. “I don’t want love to come to me. I don’t wish to understand it,” Marjorie made sad protest. “Since it isn’t in my heart to love you, I should never wish to love any one else. You’re the finest, gentlest, truest boy _I’ve_ ever known, Hal, or ever expect to know.” Hal’s half averted face was suddenly turned toward Marjorie. Across it flashed a rare sweet smile which lived long afterward in her memory. “It’s as I told you last night, Marjorie Dean. You haven’t grown up.” Tender amusement had mercifully broken into and lightened his gloom. “You only think you have,” he said. Marjorie’s naive avowal had brought with it a faint stirring of new hope. “Yes, Hal, I’ve grown up,” Marjorie began seriously. “It’s not——” “You’ll never really grow up until love finds the way to your heart,” Hal interrupted with gentle positiveness. “I hope when it does it will be love for me. I can’t give you up, dear. I’m going to call you ‘dear’ this once. I’d rather have your friendship than the love of any other girl in the world. I’m going to wait for you to grow up.” CHAPTER V.—A WARM RECEPTION “Hamilton! Hamilton!” Marjorie Dean smiled to herself. Her expressive brown eyes grew brighter as the lusty call echoed through the car. One hand tightened about the leather handle of her traveling bag with the impatience of one who was longing to be free of the limited confines of the car. She peered alertly out of the open window at the familiar railway platform which lay deserted in the warm glory of a mid-summer sun. How strange it seemed to see the good old platform so bare and empty! “Not a sign of Robin,” was her disappointed reflection. “What’s happened to her, I wonder? I’m evidently first here after all. She can’t have arrived yet or she would surely be out on the platform watching for me.” The three or four persons, whose destination was also Hamilton were now moving down the aisle toward the car’s upper door. Marjorie did not follow the orderly little line of passengers. She turned and hurried to the opposite end of the car impatient to be out of the train. She was glad to be the only one to leave the car from that end.