"Good-evening, Mr. Travers," she exclaimed with pleased surprise, as
he rose to greet her. "I did not expect to find you here. How grave
you all look! And what lovely flowers!"
Travers considered his bouquet with a rueful smile.
"I brought them from my garden, Miss Caruthers," he said. "They
were meant for to-night's festivity. But it seems they have come
too late--you are already well supplied."
"Flowers never come too late and one can never have too many of them!"
Lois answered gratefully. "Please bring them in here and I will put
them in water."
She led the way into the drawing-room and he followed her eagerly.
Whether it was the sight of her charm and youth, or the warm greeting
which he had read in her eyes, or the satisfied calm on Stafford's
face, Travers himself could not have told, but in that moment he lost
his usual self-possession. He was white and shaken like a man who sees
himself thrust suddenly to the brink of a chasm and knows that he must
cross or fall.
"Miss Caruthers!" he said.
She turned quickly from the flowers which she was arranging in a bowl.
The smile of pleasure which still lingered about her lips died away as
she saw his face.
"Miss Caruthers," he repeated earnestly, "it is perhaps neither wise
nor right of me to speak now, but there are moments when anything--even
the worst--is better than uncertainty, when a man can bear no more.
Forgive me--I am not eloquent and what I have to tell can be
encompassed in one word.
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