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 "Yes, and alone. I mean—" he hesitated, then went on desperately, "Oh, it's not the waiting I mind; it's losing you!"

"Poor Mr. Forbes!" she sighed lugubriously.

Wade jumped up and strode to the window and stood a moment staring unseeingly out into the storm. Then he turned, with a shake of his shoulders, and came back to where she sat.

"Oh, I suppose I'm acting like an awful ass," he exclaimed with a wry smile, "and I don't blame you for laughing at me. Perhaps I'd better go outside again for awhile."

"Outside? But why?"

"Oh, because." He sank onto the bench and stared moodily at his interlaced fingers. Ensued a silence broken only by the soft fall of a coal in the stove.

"I suppose it bores you to death," he said finally, "but I just have to talk about it."

"It?" she asked.