When he turned abruptly, with his characteristic jerk, she started and shrank only too visibly. "Explain," he said. "Sit down in this chair--you look as white as a sheet--and explain. You tell me you are well and strong. Your mother in a letter which I got last Saturday morning told me you were seriously ill. Ferris, whom I met to-day in town, said that the doctor would not let you get up. There is some discrepancy here." Her eyes filled with tears. "I know," she said. "May I tell you about it?" "Certainly." He had seated her in the old wooden writing-chair from which he had risen. He fetched another for himself, and placed it near. The lamp fell upon her burnished hair and upon his strained face as he raised it to her. It struck her that he was very different from her memory of him. His eyes had surely grown larger, his face thinner. His close-cut hair changed his appearance. He wore other, nicer clothes than those in which she was accustomed to see him; but chiefly he looked younger, less assured. There was something almost wistful in his expression. She gave a swift, appraising glance, and lowered her eyes to the table. In her nervousness she would have liked to take up a paper knife and play with it. Some deep instinct told her to be simple and perfectly straightforward. She let her hands lie in her lap. "Mamma," she began, "did not want me to come back. I--I suppose she told you of the vexatious motor accident, which obliged Mr. Rosenberg and me to stop the night in a horrid little wayside inn?" "She said something of it--yes." "Of course I was most anxious not to have to be away all night, because I was to leave Worthing next day to come back here, and so, when the car did not return, I was urgent in begging that we might try to reach home some other way. So we drove in a little open cart, through pouring rain, to try and catch a train--the last train--and just missed it. I got very wet, and I could not dry my things properly, the place was so dirty and comfortless; and I got a little feverish chill. It was not much, but it made me delirious for some hours. I think the fever was partly because I was vexed and anxious. You see, I had written to you to say I was coming, and it was annoying to be stopped like that. Anyway, when I was sensible again mamma said I--I had been saying things ... you understand ... things about you ... when I didn't know what I was talking about." "I see." His tone was dry. "I had been very careful," she urged humbly, "not to say anything about what had passed between us. I hope you will forgive me for letting things out, unintentionally?" "Let me hear all that happened before we talk about that." She looked frightened, but after a short pause continued indomitably.