She stood, half smiling, half fearful, her dark eyes meeting his, two friendly little hands outstretched. Then, as his own caught them, almost crushed them: "Oh, it was _your_ letter that ended all for me, Louis! It settled every doubt I had. I _knew_ then--you darling!" She bent and touched his hands with her lips, then lifted her sweet, untroubled gaze to his: "I had been away from you so long, so long. And the time was approaching for me to decide, and I didn't know what was best for us, any more than when I went away. And _then_!--your letter came!" She shook her head, slowly: "I don't know what I might have decided if you never had written that letter to me; probably I would have come back to you anyway. I think so; I can't think of my doing anything else: though I _might_ have decided--against myself. But as soon as I read your letter I _knew_, Louis.... And I am here." He said with drawn lips quivering: "Did you read in that letter one single word of cowardly appeal?--one infamous word of self? If you did, I wrote in vain." "It was because I read nothing in it of self that I made up my mind, Louis." She stepped nearer. "Why are you so dreadfully pale and worn? Your face is so haggard--so terrible--" She laid one hand on his shoulder, looking up at him; then she smoothed his forehead and hair, lightly. "As though I could ever live without you," she said under her breath. Then she laughed, releasing her hands, and went over to the dresser where there was a mirror. "I have come, at one in the morning, to pay you a call," she said, withdrawing the long pins from her hat and taking it off. "Later I should like a cup of chocolate, please.... Oh, there is Gladys! You sweet thing!" she cried softly, kneeling to embrace the cat who came silently into the room, tail waving aloft in gentle greeting. The girl lifted Gladys onto the bed and rolled her over into a fluffy ball and rubbed her cheeks and her ears until her furry toes curled, and her loud and grateful purring filled the room. Valerie, seated sideways on the edge of the bed, looked up at Neville, laughing: "I _must_ tell you about Sam and Hélène," she said. "They are too funny! Hélène was furious because Sam wrote her a letter saying that he intended to marry her but had not the courage to notify her, personally, of his decision; and Hélène was wild, and wrote him that he might save himself further trouble in the matter. And they've been telephoning to each other at intervals all day, and Sam is so afraid of her that he dare not go to see her; and Hélène was in tears when I saw her--and I _think_ it was because she was afraid Sam wouldn't come and resume the quarrel where she could manage it and him more satisfactorily." She threw back her head and laughed at the recollection, stroking Gladys the while: