"I can't help it," he answered. "What would you have me do? Stand in
the market place and shout my needs?"

She clung to his arm. "You dear thing!" she said. "You're a great
baby!"

They were in the shadow of the entrance to the flats. He suddenly bent
over her; his lips were almost on hers. There was a frightened gleam in
her eyes, but she made no movement of retreat. Suddenly he drew himself
upright.

"That wouldn't help, would it?" he said simply. "Thank you, all the
same, Nora. Good-by!"

On his table, when he entered his rooms that night, lay the letter for
which he had craved. He opened it almost fiercely. The few lines
seemed like a message of hope:

"Don't laugh at me, dear friend, but I am coming to London for a week or
two, to my little house in Charles Street. I don't know exactly when.
You will find time to come and see me?"

Here the mists seem to have fallen upon us like a shroud, and we can't
escape. I galloped many miles this morning, but it was like trying to
find the edge of the world.

Please call on my sister at 17 Mount Street. She likes you and wants to
see more of you.