On the day following her second meeting with the stranger who called himself John Converse, Alice Lorraine was in a sad state of mind when she reached the lane. She _had_ to see the man again. She told herself that ordinary civility as well as her own desire demanded that. Chance had brought them together and put upon her the duty of aiding him so far as possible in looking up old associations without making himself known in the village of his birth and boyhood. She had somehow lost her head and become involved in a warm dispute. That made it hard for her to act to-day. But she told herself that she was not going back as the girl who had been vehement over--nothing! She was simply going to meet John Converse (for the last time, probably) in the odd little shop, give him such information as she was able, and if he should wish, help him plan his course of action. Then they would part in the polite way of people who have become acquainted in the course of a long railway journey and offered one another kindly civilities. It would be simple enough, she told herself, if she could only remember that he belonged to an older generation. He didn’t look young and he couldn’t be, with a memory reaching back as far as his did. It was only his sad eyes which could become so merry and the whimsical smile that transformed his gaunt face that had made her feel as if he were a companion of her own years. As the girl stole around the cottage towards the path leading to the shop, John Converse rose quickly from the step of the back porch and joined her. He held out his hand eagerly and she put hers shyly into it, her face expressing the relief she felt to find that he was not resentful. She realised now that she had feared that if he were about at all he would be stiff and cold. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said with a frank smile. “I have had a nasty night, I can tell you. And now I want to explain to you right away what must have seemed to you inexcusable behaviour. Shall we sit down here?” Alice thought of his safety. And she suggested that they might as well go into the shop. As they entered, she noted that there was a fire and the same preparations for tea he had made the day before. He took her jacket, made her comfortable, prepared the tea and served her. Alice, with a sense of relief that was like happiness, leaned back in her chair and watched him admiringly. She had never known a man to be so deft, and gazing at his hands she noticed that, though the skin was hard and rough and they must have done the work of a labourer, they were the long, sensitive, slender hands of the sculptor or musician--probably the latter. And suddenly her lips puckered in an involuntary smile. “What pleases you, if I may ask?” he said wonderingly. He himself was very serious,--sad, almost. There was no hint now of the whimsicality that made him so young--nor of the youthful impulsiveness with which he had met her to-day.