some slight movement, the flutter of her skirt, drew his attention; he turned sharply, gazing directly into her face.

"Pat!" He sprang to his feet. "Pat! is it you--truly you? Or are you one of these visions that have been plaguing me for hours?"

"I'm real," she said, returning his gaze with a studied coolness in her face. She made no other move; her cold composure disconcerted him, and he winced, flushed, and moved nervously aside as she seated herself. He dropped beside her; he made no attempt to touch her, but sat watching her in silence for so long a time that she felt her composure ebbing. There was a hungry, defeated look about him; there was a wistfulness, a frustration, in his eyes that seemed about to tug tears from her own eyes. Abruptly she dropped her gaze from his face.

"Well?" she said finally in a small voice, and as he made no reply, "I'm here."

"Are you really, Pat? Are you truly here?" he murmured, still watching her avidly. "I--I still don't believe it. I waited here for hours and hours last night, and I'd given up hope for tonight, or any night. But I would have come again and again."

She started as he bent suddenly toward her, but he was merely examining her face. She saw the gleam of horror in his expression as his eyes surveyed the faintly visible bruise on her cheek, the red mark on her chin.

"Oh my God, Pat!" His words were barely audible. "Oh my God!" he repeated, drawing away from her and resuming the attitude of desolation in which her arrival had found him. "I've hoped it wasn't true!"

"What wasn't?" She was keeping her voice carefully casual; this miserable contrition of Nick's was tugging at her rather too powerfully for complete safety.

"What I remembered. What I saw just now."

"You hoped it wasn't true?" she queried in surprise. "But you did it."

"I did it, Pat? Do you think I could have done it?"

"But you did!" Her voice had taken on a chill inflection; the memory of those indignities came to steel her against him.

"Pat, do you think I could assault your daintiness, or maltreat the beauty I worship? Didn't anything occur to you? Didn't anything seem queer about--about that ghastly evening?"

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