Unable to speak what was in his heart, John stood silent. He moistened his lips with his tongue and wondered why it was he could not shout back his answer. Flustered by the boldness of the question put to him so directly, a thought flashed into his mind of Betty's frank declaration that she knew he loved Consuello. Then he discovered the reason why his mother had been so perturbed by his frequent meetings with her. She, too, undoubtedly knew he was in love! While these thoughts were racing through his head, Gibson put his hand on his shoulder. "You need not answer, Gallant," he said, "because your silence is enough. Regardless of how incongruous it seems in view of the great wrong I have done her, I love her, too. And, because I love her I can tell that you do. I can see it by the way you speak to her, the way you look at her and unless I am greatly mistaken she knows it as well as you and I do." He grasped John's left hand in his own. "Take care of her, Gallant; love her and try to make her happy," he said. He turned and walked to the door, leaving John speechless and motionless, staring after him. At the threshold he wheeled to face them again. "Exit, the villain," he said slowly and smiling. The door closed behind him and his footsteps, taking him steadily, not too fast, not too slowly, from the house, diminished until the only sound audible in the room was the ticking of the clock on the mantel of the fireplace. John, his back toward Consuello, his eyes on the door, wondering whether it was all a dream, a cheer in his heart for the man who had left them so dramatically, feared to move. "Exit, the villain"--Gibson's last words--echoed in his brain. He imagined he heard Brennan saying: "A grandstander, a grandstander to the last." When he finally turned around, Consuello was standing by the open casement window, looking out into the night, her fingers touching the petals of the geraniums on the sill, in the same position in which she had stood when she had recited to him the little verse with its simple, homely philosophy. He moved to her side, marveling at her unaffected beauty. Looking out of the window he saw that the moon, which had been hidden by the clouds an hour before, had crested her "green and friendly hill" with an outline of silvery-blue. Something in her pose that suggested to him that she was waiting for him to speak gave him the courage. Yet he was afraid to look at her as he spoke, afraid to see what effect his words had upon her. "I do--love you," he said. That little gasp as she caught her breath, what did it mean? Still unable to face her, he continued: "He knew it; Betty knows it; mother knows it and I want the whole world to know it--I love you." He could say no more.