He heard the front door open. There was a rustle out in the hall, and voices. He let his head fall against the back of his chair and turned his face toward the parlour door. He hardly knew what to make of himself; he was almost afraid he had emotions. Certainly a peculiar disturbance was going on somewhere within him, such a disturbance as hardly could be looked for within the manager of a lumber company. He did not like it at all. He wondered why she was so long about coming in. Perhaps she would go on upstairs, not knowing he was there; and that would be awkward. Altogether, it was probably a good thing that Halloran had come out to Evanston before the new life had succeeded in withdrawing him finally from the old, before the proportion of one-tenth to nine-tenths had been evened up and he had wholly changed into Michigan lumber--a very good thing indeed. She came in through the hall doorway and paused surprised. He felt himself rising and standing with his back to the table and the light. She came slowly forward, inclining her head a little to get the light out of her eyes so that she could see his face. The disturbance, now increasing in that strange new part of him, out of all proportion to the occasion, called his attention to her reserve, to the something--was it pride?--that had disturbed him in other days; it taunted him with her firm carriage, her fine, thoughtful face; it reminded him of her real superiority, the superiority that comes only from pride in right living; and so Halloran, the vigorous, the elated, at the moment of greeting an old friend in her own house, was so far from equal to the situation that for the life of him he could think of nothing but certain raw facts in his own bringing-up, or fighting-up, whichever it might be called. And not a word did he say--simply waited. [Illustration: 0139] She came a few steps nearer and hesitated. Then, after an instant, her whole expression changed. Her eyes lighted up with gladness so real that even he could not misread it; and she came rapidly forward with outstretched hand. “Why, John Halloran,” she cried; “where did you come from?” CHAPTER VIII--The Question He took her hand, and their eyes met. Until now it had not occurred to him that she, too, had changed. Her expression even was different; three years earlier she had been living earnestly, intensely--she had felt the unequal burdens of the world and had plunged fearlessly into vast problems, but now she seemed more impersonal, more detached. “Sit down,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “I will speak to mother.”