"Come here, Agnes," he said. "I want to look at you. I must see you clearly. And I--I want you to look at me. Come." While speaking he struck a match, and lighted, first the tall wax candles standing upon the escritoire, and then those in the candelabra upon the chimney-piece. Beheld in their mellow light, the room assumed a more than ever familiar and friendly aspect. Laurence felt that he was at home--at home, consciously, and with a security and content upon him such as he had never experienced before. It was singularly pleasant to feel thus. Moving back he stood in front of the slender, rose-clad figure. His manner was serious, though very gentle, and his voice somewhat broken by the emotion under which he laboured. "See, I have opened your little treasure-chest for you," he said. "And I have read your dear letters--that constituted no breach of faith, or act of presumption, considering how often I have read them already. I have put everything carefully back in its place, save our two miniatures, which lie here side by side. I tell you honestly, I am perplexed. I can't fit in the bits of the puzzle, or piece out the story as yet; but that, to my mind, doesn't matter very much. For we are here together, once again, you and I." He shifted the position of the candles so that their full light should fall upon her. "Now let me look at you," he said. And as he looked his eyes grew somewhat moist, for he perceived that which he had blindly desired, blindly sought all his days, that which had been as an ache at his heart even in his gayest hours, because he needed it and had it not--though he had had no knowledge of what indeed it was he needed--now stood visibly before him. Sweet phantom, old-time love, exquisite companion--having found her, how could he ever again let her go? Listening to her pretty, halting speech the flattering belief had once more grown strong in him that he had the power--had he also the will--to restore her to complete and living womanhood. The ambition of so doing possessed him with redoubled force; and the love of her, rooted so deeply in that mysterious former life and former personality of his, possessed him too. Considerations of right and wrong, of duty, even of honour, he brushed aside. The peace and content of the present, the daring effort, the triumph and delight of the future should that effort succeed, rendered him callous to all things beside. Then a touch of self-distrust took him. Did he please, as he was pleased? He wondered. "Agnes," he asked her almost wistfully, "tell me, have I changed very much?" Her eyes, which had grown somewhat shy beneath his searching scrutiny, regained their serenity. She replied more readily, and in more assured accents, while a gentle playfulness was perceptible in her bearing.