"Am I likely to forget it?" asked Theed, looking up at him out of his bright dark eyes. "Don't I--a hundred times a day, when I'm at work--feel her close beside me? Don't I hear, in the air about me, the very sound of the childish songs she used to croon to me? Do I remember?" He made a step suddenly toward Comethup, and laid a hand on his arm. "You were but a child then, a baby like herself; have you forgotten? Can any one who has ever looked into her eyes forget her? They say you have travelled far--for many years in many lands; yet her eyes drew you back here again as surely as a load-stone. Could you resist them? Could you forget her?" "Why, no," said Comethup. "I think you're quite right there: I'm quite sure no one could forget her who had once seen her." "One and all, young and old, she draws them all back," went on the old man, speaking as if to himself. "The years go on and bring their changes; the snows come and the flowers bloom again; and still she calls them all back, still she draws them to her. I dreamed once that it might be possible to keep her a child always; to keep her close beside me, crooning her songs and playing with her doll, and knowing nothing of anything outside; never growing older, and never knowing any sorrows but such as may innocently touch a child. But the dream never came true." "Why, you couldn't expect it to come true," said Comethup, looking at him wonderingly. "'Linda was obliged to grow up, as we all grow; and now she's quite a beautiful woman." "Yes, a woman--a beautiful woman," whispered the old man, passing his hand in a dazed way across his forehead. "There was another child--or was it this same child, after all?--a child who grew to be a woman, and then----" He came eagerly, almost threateningly, toward Comethup in the deserted street and looked up scowlingly at him. "Why do you come here at all? Why not leave her in peace? Why not leave her a child--in heart at least? The world is wide, and you have seen much of it; this is but a little corner of it, a place hidden away. Why not go out into your world and leave her in peace?" Comethup looked at him in amazement for a moment--amazement not unmixed with awe, for the man appeared so desperately in earnest. "You don't understand," he said at last. "But since you think of her so much, and because I know you were her friend when she was very young, let me tell you that I love her very dearly, and that she is to be my wife." "Your wife! Ah! there was some one else who said that once. It is such an easy thing to say! Yet you look--yes, you seem honest. I remember I liked your face when you were a child. Will you swear it?" "Why, of course, if you won't believe my bare word."