The vision faded away in an instant as there came the sound of rapping at the outer door. Reuben rose to his feet, his brain still bewildered by the sun-like brilliancy of the picture which had been burned into it, and confusedly collected his thoughts as he walked across the larger room. His partner had been out of town some days, and he had sent the office-boy home, in order that the Lawton girl might be able to talk in freedom. The knocking; was that of a woman’s hand. Evidently it was Jessica, who had come an hour or so earlier than she had appointed. He wondered vaguely what her errand might be, as he opened the door. In the dingy hallway stood two figures instead of one, both thickly clad and half veiled. The waning light of late afternoon did not enable him to recognize his visitors with any certainty. The smaller lady of the two might be Jessica--the the who stood farthest away. He had almost resolved that it was, in this moment of mental dubiety, when the other, putting out her gloved hand, said to him: “I am afraid you don’t remember me, it is so long since we met. This is my sister, Mr. Tracy--Miss Ethel Minster.” The door-knob creaked in Reuben’s hand as he pressed upon it for support, and there were eccentric flashes of light before his eyes. “Oh, I am _so_ glad!” was what he said. “Do come in--do come in.” He led the way into the office with a dazed sense of heading a triumphal procession, and then stopped in the centre of the room, suddenly remembering that he had not shaken hands. Was it too late now? To give himself time to think, he lighted the gas in both offices and closed all the shutters. “Oh, I am _so_ glad!” he repeated, as he turned to the two ladies. The radiant smile on his face bore out his words. “I am afraid the little room--my own place--is full of cigar-smoke. Let me see about the fire here.” He shook the grate vehemently, and poked down the coals through one of the upper windows. “Perhaps it will be warm enough here. Let me bring some chairs.” He bustled into the inner room, and pushed out his own revolving desk-chair, and drew up two others from different ends of the office. The easiest chair of all, which was at Horace’s table, he did not touch. Then, when his two visitors had taken seats, he beamed down upon them once more, and said for the third time: “I really _am_ delighted!” Miss Kate put up her short veil with a frank gesture. The unaffected pleasure which shone in Reuben’s face and radiated from his manner was something more exuberant than she had expected, but it was grateful to her, and she and her sister both smiled in response. “I have an apology to make first of all, Mr. Tracy,” she said, and her voice was the music of the seraphim to his senses. “I don’t think--I am afraid I never answered your kind letter last spring. It is a bad habit of mine; I am the worst correspondent in the world. And then we went away so soon afterward.”