"Then I'm coming up to complete my penance----" "I'll lock my door!" "Would you?" "I ought to.... But if you are in great spiritual distress, and if you really and truly repent, and if you humbly desire to expiate your sin by doing--penance----" And hesitated: "Do you so desire?" "Yes, I do." "Humbly? Contritely?" "Yes." "Very well. Say 'Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.'" "Mea maxima culpa," he said so earnestly, looking up into her face that she bent lower over the sill to see him. "Let me come up, Eve," he said. She strove to laugh, gazing down into his shadowy face--but suddenly the desire had left her,--and all her gaiety left her, too, suddenly, leaving only a still excitement in her breast. "You--you knew I was just laughing," she said unsteadily. "You understood, didn't you?" "I don't know." After a silence: "I didn't mean you to take me seriously," she said. She tried to laugh. It was no use. And, as she leaned there on the sill, her heart frightened her with its loud beating. "Will you let me come up, Eve?" No answer. "Would you lock your door?" "What do you think I'd do?" she asked tremulously. "You know; I don't." "Are you so sure I know what I'd do? I don't think either of us know our own minds.... I seem to have lost some of my wits.... Somehow...." "If you are not going to sleep, let me come up." "I want you to take a walk down by the pond. And while you're walking there all by yourself, I want you to think very clearly, very calmly, and make up your mind whether I should remain awake to-night, or whether, when you return, I ought to be asleep and--and my door bolted." After a long pause: "All right," he said in a low voice. V She saw him walk away--saw his shadowy, well-built form fade into the starlit mist. An almost uncontrollable impulse set her throat and lips quivering with desire to call to him through the night, "I do love you! I do love you! Come back quickly, quickly!----" Fog hung over Star Pond, edging the veranda, rising in frail shreds to her window. The lapping of the water sounded very near. An owl was very mournful in the hemlocks. The girl turned from the window, looked at the door for a moment, then her face flushed and she walked toward a chair and seated herself, leaving the door unbolted. For a little while she sat upright, alert, as though a little frightened. After a few moments she folded her hands and sat unstirring, with lowered head, awaiting Destiny. * * * * * It came, noiselessly. And so swiftly that the rush of air from her violently opened door was what first startled her. For in the same second Earl Leverett was upon her in his stockinged feet, one bony hand gripping her mouth, the other flung around her, pinning both arms to her sides. "The packet!" he panted, "--quick, yeh dirty little cat, 'r'I'll break yeh head off'n yeh damn neck!"