Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/160

 "Do you need His help, then?"

He wheeled, thoroughly frightened. He had heard no sound, and here she was, close at his elbow, eying him gravely.

"Don't we always need Him?" he answered. "I was thinking out loud."

He held out his hand rather awkwardly, and as she put hers into it he bent and reverently kissed the hand. Save in light-hearted mockery, he had never kissed a woman's hand before. Perhaps he kissed it because he was in mental terror lest he throw his arms around her and smother her lips. When he raised his head the flurry of passion was gone.

On her part she had taken a deep, quick breath and closed her eyes that she might not see his head so close.

Rather an embarrassing pause followed this demonstration. They were both strangely stirred, not so much by the meeting as by preoccupation.

"And so you have returned?" she said.

"Had to"—with a lame attempt at lightness. How he loved her!

"You went away in a hurry."

"I'm an odd duffer. I do a lot of strange