"I should have to prepare her, David. She knows that he is alive--but-- Listen, David!" She leaned forward to give emphasis to her words. "If he comes to her now with the story of his--his wrongs, of his sufferings, she will forget all that has gone before. Her heart is tender. I am afraid of the stand she may take--and she may compel me to take it with her." "I'll do all that I can, Mrs. Braddock, to--" he began. The sound of voices in the vestibule came to them at that moment. Good nights were being called from the steps to the street below. Then the door was opened and closed quickly. Some one came rapidly down the hall. There was a swift rustling of skirts, the low humming of an air from "Pinafore." David was on his feet in an instant, visibly excited by the impending encounter. Christine came into the library. She was half-way across the room before she realized that the tall young man beside her mother was a stranger... She stopped. Her questioning gaze lingered on his face. His smile puzzled her. Her eyes narrowed, then suddenly they were distended; her lips parted in amazement, tremulously struggling into a smile of wonder and unbelief. No one had spoken. "It--it is David," she said, a quaver of breathlessness in the soft tones. He sprang forward, his hands extended. "Yes," he cried, transported by the new aspect of loveliness. She stood straight and slim before him, still unbelieving. Slowly her hands were lifted to meet his, as if impelled by a power not her own. He clasped them; they were cold. Something in their limp unresponsiveness chilled him as if he had been touched by ice. He gently released them and drew back, dismayed within himself. "Why--why didn't you tell me, mamma?" she cried, the flutter in her voice increasing. A swift wave of color rushed to her cheeks. She suddenly held out her hands to him again, an eagerness in the action that caught him unawares and lifted his spirits to dizzy heights. "Oh, I am so glad--so glad to see you, David," she cried. Her firm little hands were warm now, and trembling. "Christine," he half whispered, "are you--are you truly glad to see me? Do you mean it?" She was looking straight into his eyes. In her own glowed a dark appeal; she seemed to be delving in the secret recesses of his heart. "David," she cried, forgetful of everything else in the world, "does it mean that you--you still care for me? You haven't changed? I have been wondering--oh, how I have been--" The plaintive note drove all doubt from his mind. He was suddenly exalted. Speech was beyond him. His dream had come true. She was incomparably fairer than his waking hours had pictured her during the five years of probation; only in fond dreams had she appeared to him as she now appeared in reality. He could only look down into her face, mute under the seal of wonder. All that he had longed for and prayed for was here revealed to him; he could have asked for no more. He went suddenly weak with joy.