“I heard you go out last night. I heard you come in this morning. But not another soul in the house suspects that you were out; not one!” The tone was unmistakably solemn, and weighted with deep feeling of some sort. Seth uneasily felt that a scene was impending, though he could not foresee its form. He felt, too, that the part he must play in it would of necessity be an awkward one. “Yes,” he answered, “the night seemed too fine to stay in doors. Besides, I was nervous, and it did me good to walk it off. You can’t imagine how light-hearted I was when I returned, or--for that matter--how heavy-hearted when I went out.” “Seth!” The word came forth like the red flash from clouds which can no longer retain their pent-up, warring, swelling forces--an interjection of passion, of dread, of infinite troubling, of doubt wreathed in struggle with pain. She swayed slightly toward him, her hands clasped and stretched down and forward with a gesture of excessive perturbation, her great eyes lustrous with the excitement of this battle of emotions. Seth fancied that the dominant meaning of the look was reproach. He could not in the least see his way through the dilemma, or even understand it. He could only say to himself that the enchantment was ended, and that, come what might, he would not forget Annie. The woman glided a step nearer to him. She put one hand to her brow with a sudden movement, and rested the other upon the piano, as if all at once conscious of needing support. With a painful little laugh, hysterically incongruous, she said: “I am almost beside myself, am I not? I can not speak to you, it seems! And yet there is so much to say--or no! isn’t silence better still?” Her voice trembled as she went on: “For what _could_ we say? How meaningless all our words would be in the face of---- of-----.” She swept both hands to her eyes, with an impetuous gesture. Her form seemed to totter for a moment, so that Seth instinctively moved toward her. Then with a wild outburst of sobs she threw herself upon his breast, convulsed with incessant paroxysms of passionate weeping. They stood thus together for some minutes. The young man, moved to great tenderness by her evident suffering, the cause of which he vaguely referred to the previous evening’s events, put his arm about her, whispered gently to her to be comforted, and stroked her hair with a soft, caressing touch. His hand touched her cheek, and she shuddered at the contact; then swiftly took the hand in hers, and raised it to her lips, murmuring between the sobs: “Ungrateful! was it not done for me? Ah, dear, I shall not shudder again.” She kissed the hand repeatedly, and pressed it to her bosom, as she spoke. She was still trembling like a leaf in his arms. What could it all mean? he asked himself--and found no answer.