How long he sat alone Raymond never realized. It seemed like years, then like a moment--but it brought him to Nancy as she stood at the top of the flight of steps leading to the warm, fire-lighted room while the fountain splashed cheerfully and a restless, curious little bird twittered in its cage. Nancy wore the faintest of blue gowns; a cloudlike scarf fell from her shoulders; her eyes held the full confession of her love as they met the groping in Raymond's. He opened his arms. "My darling!" he said, "will you come?" Slowly, radiantly, Nancy stepped down. "It seems as if I'd always been coming," she was saying. "I--I don't want to hurry now that I--I see you." "I--I think I've always been coming, too," Raymond would not take a step, "but I was walking in the dark." "And I----" but Nancy did not finish her sentence--she had found her heart's desire. "I'm not worthy," murmured Raymond, pressing the light hair with his lips. "Neither am I. We'll grow worthy together. It's like finding a beautiful thing we both were seeking. It isn't you or I--alone--it is something outside us that we are going to make--ours." Spiritually Raymond got upon his knees, humanly he pressed the girl close. "It's--you--the Thing is--_you_" he whispered, and at that moment knew the last, definite difference between what he now felt and--all that had gone before. CHAPTER XXI "_To suffer sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth that has to be learned in the fire._" It was all so exactly as it should be--the love affair of Nancy and Raymond--that it lacked excitement. There was a moment when Doris and David Martin looked into each other's eyes and sadly smiled; but that was past as it came. "It's all right, Davey!" "Of course, Doris, and Bud wasn't in it after all. It was our desire--not his. He seems to feel he ought to be cheered for whooping the thing on; making Raymond jealous, you know." "Dear boy!" "Thanks, Doris. He is something worth while." Mrs. Tweksbury was so expansive in her happiness that she embarrassed Nancy. She fairly bounded over the fragrant garden of new love and scanned the wide pastures beyond. "Ken, if I can see children in this old house, I'll thank God and depart in peace. Say that you will come here, boy. You know I'm always scuttling overseas. I won't be in the way--but it is the one desire of my shrivelled old heart." "Aunt Emily, go slow and don't be ridiculous. The idea of your being in the way in your own house!" "Ken, make Nancy love me. I know I'm gnarled and crusty, but I need what she has to give all the more because of that. I have no pride--I want that girl's love so--that I'd--I'd humble myself." Raymond kissed her. "Has she told you of her--her sister--yet?" Mrs. Tweksbury asked. "Yes. Nancy says that until Joan, that's the name I believe, comes home she cannot leave Miss Fletcher. Nancy must not sacrifice herself." Raymond was quickly assuming the charms of ownership.