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 floor under his stumbling feet. With his dizzy head reeling blindly, and his hands shaking like an aspen, he picked her up and tried to carry her to the couch; but she wrenched herself away from him, and walked over to the window and halfway back again before she spoke.

"Aleck Reese has come home," she announced dully, and reached up unthinkingly and turned a blast of electric light full on her ghastly face.

Drew clutched at the back of the nearest chair. "Have you seen him?" he almost whispered.

The girl nodded. "Yes. He's been here a week. I've seen him twice. Once all day at the tennis club and this afternoon I met him on the street, and he came home with me to get a book."

"Why did n't you tell me before that he was here?"

She shrugged her shoulders wearily. "I thought his coming was n't going to matter," she faltered,

"But what?" said Drew.

Her arms fell limply down to her sides and her chin began to quiver.

"He kissed me this afternoon," she stammered. "and I kissed him. And, worse than that, we were both glad."

Trying to brush the fog away from his eyes, Drew almost sprang across the room at her, and she