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 Cissie picked up her handkerchief with its torn edge, which she had laid on the table. Evidently she was about to go.

“I surely don't know what will become of me,” she said, looking at it.

In a reversal of feeling Peter did not want her to go away quite then. He cast about for some excuse to detain her a moment longer.

“Now, Cissie,” he began, “if you are really going to leave Hooker's Bend—”

“I'm not going,” she said, with a long exhalation. “I—” she swallowed— “I just thought that up to—ask you to—to—You see,” she explained, a little breathless, “I thought you still loved me and had forgiven me by the way you watched for me every day at the window.”

This speech touched Peter more keenly than any of the little drama the girl had invented. It hit him so shrewdly he could think of nothing more to say.

Cissie moved toward the window and undid the latch.

“Good night, Peter.” She paused a moment, with her hand on the catch. “Peter,” she said, “I'd almost rather see you marry some other girl than try so terrible a thing.”

The big, full-blooded athlete smiled faintly.

“You seem perfectly sure marriage would cure me of my mission.”