Page:The Sick-A-Bed Lady.djvu/56

 down to seal the pledge with a kiss, but once more the significance of his word and act startled the Girl, and she clutched at the clock and ran across the room with it, and set it down very hard on her desk beside the Man's picture. Then, half ashamed of her flight, she stooped down suddenly and patted the little, ticking surface of ebony and glass and silver.

"It's a wonderful little Hickory Dock," she mused softly. "I never saw one just like it before."

The Man hesitated for a second and drew his mouth into a funny twist. "I don't believe there is another one like it in all the world," he acknowl edged, half laughingly,—"that is, not just like it. I've had it fixed so that it won't strike eleven. I'm utterly tired of having you say 'There! it's eleven o clock and you've got to go home.' Now, after ten o clock nothing can strike till twelve, aftd that gives me two whole hours to use my own judgment in."

The Girl took one eager step towards him, when suddenly over the city roofs and across the square came the hateful, strident chime of midnight. Midnight? Midnight? The Girl rushed frantically to her closet and pulled the Man's coat out from among her fluffy dresses and thrust it into his hands, and he fled distractedly for his train without "Good-by."