As he poured out these words, and much more, hot as a flood of molten metal, Alice slowly recovered her composure. She was absolutely and tranquilly happy--so perfectly at rest that she hardly cared for the pain her lover was confessing. She felt she could compensate him for everything, and every word he said filled her with a delight which she could not bear to lose by replying. She sat listening to him with half-shut eyes, determined not to answer until he had made an end of speaking. But she said to herself, with a tenderness which made her heart beat more than her lover's words, "How surprised he will be when I tell him he shall not go." The rustling of Mrs. Belding's ample approach broke in upon her trance and Farnham's litany. He rose, not without some confusion, to greet her, and Alice, with bright and even playful eyes, said, "Mamma, what do you think this errant young cavalier has come to say to us?" Mrs. Belding looked with puzzled inquiry from one to the other. "Simply," continued Alice, "that he is off for Japan in a day or two, and he wants to know if we have any commissions for him." "Nonsense! Arthur, I won't listen to it. Come over to dinner this evening and tell me all about it. I've got an appointment this very minute at our Oriental Gospel rooms and cannot wait to talk to you now. But this evening, you must tell me what it all means, and I hope you will have changed your mind by that time." The good lady did not even sit down, but rustled briskly away. Perhaps she divined more of what was toward than appeared--but she did as she would have wished to be done by, when she was young, and left the young people to their own devices. Farnham turned to Alice, who was still standing, and said, "Alice, my own love, can you not give me one word of hope to carry with me? I cannot forget you. My mind cannot change. Perhaps yours may, when the ocean is between us, and you have time to reflect on what I have said. I spoke too soon and too rashly. But I will make amends for that by long silence. Then perhaps you will forgive me--perhaps you will recall me. I will obey your call from the end of the world." He held out his hand to her. She gave him hers with a firm warm grasp. He might have taken courage from this, but her composure and her inscrutable smile daunted him. "You are not going yet," she said. "You have forgotten what you came for."