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 coolness, although the flush returned to her cheeks.

"And I—I was to blame for that," cried Thorndyke, venturing farther upon ticklish ground.

"Not altogether," replied Constance, maintaining the steadiness of her voice. "My aunt hated our country; she could not forget the Civil War; and she meant—poor soul, I forgive her now—that I should never return to America permanently. It was a strange thing to do, but I must admit my aunt to have been in some respects both a strange and a foolish woman. Let us not speak of her again. I am back, and if I feel as I do now I shall never live in Europe again. It is time for me to prepare to grow old."

She said this with a wan little smile, and all at once thought with terror of her age; there was but four or five years' difference between Thorndyke and herself, and that difference, at a certain point, becomes transferred to the gentleman's side of the ledger. Suddenly the spring afternoon seemed to become melancholy and overcast. A sharp wind sprang up from the near-by river; the world turned from gold to gray. At the same moment