A clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour.  
Midnight!
 
Polly Wickes rose hastily from the corner of the big leather-upholstered Chesterfield in which her small figure had been tucked away.
 
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea it was so late. Every one else has been in bed ages ago."
 
"I think," said Locke gravely, "that it is our duty to stand by that last log. It's been a rather jolly fire, you know. I—"
 
"That is the second one you have put on after having made the same remark twice before," she accused him severely.
 
"I know," said Locke. "I'm guilty—but think of the extenuating circumstances."
 
Polly Wickes laughed.
 
"No," she said.
 
"This is positively the last," pleaded Locke. "There may not be any excuse for a grate fire to-morrow night. Have you thought of that? The wind is still howling, but the rain has stopped and the moon is coming out, and—" His tongue was running away with him inanely. He stopped short.
 
"Yes?" inquired Polly Wickes demurely.
 
The great dark eyes were laughing at him—teasing a little.
 
"Well, confound it," he blurted out, "I don't want you to go! This has been a day and an evening that I shall never forget—very wonderful ones for me. I don't want them to be only memories—yet."
 
He met the dark eyes steadily now. The laughter had gone from them. He found them studying him for an instant in an almost startled way—and then the eyelids drooped and covered them, and she turned her head a little, facing the portièred window beside the fireplace of the living room in which they stood, and the colour crept softly upward from the full, bare throat, and stole into her cheeks.
 
He caught his breath. He felt his pulse stir into a quicker beat. She was very lovely as she stood there with the soft, mellow glow of the rose-shaded lamp and with the flicker of the flames from the firelight playing upon her.
 
"Just this last one," he pleaded again.
 
She hesitated for an instant, then sat down slowly on the Chesterfield once more. And as he watched her, there seemed to have come a curious quiet upon her. She did not look at him now—she was staring at her hands, which were tightly clasped together in her lap.
 
"Very well," she said in a low voice. "I think that I, too, would like to have—that last log. There is something that I want to say—that I meant to say this afternoon on the yacht. I—Mr. Locke, do you know who I am?"
 
She would not look up. He could not see her face. He knew what she meant—Mr. Marlin's words of the day before flashed upon him. There was something of dreariness in her voice, something that strove to be very bravely defiant but was only wistful, and an almost uncontrollable impulse fell upon him to touch her face and lift it gently, and make her eyes meet his again. There would be an answer there—an answer that he had not yet dared put in words. What right had he to do so? A day of dreams on the yacht to-day—that, and yesterday. Two days! He had known her longer than that....
 
He found himself answering her question automatically.
 
"What a strange question!" He was laughing—speaking lightly. "Of course, I know who you are."
 
"Yes," she said gravely, "you know that my name is Polly Wickes—but do you know anything about me?"
 
He came and stood a little closer to her.
 
"I think I know you." His voice had lost its lighter tone.
 
A little flood of colour came as she shook her head.
 
"Did guardy tell you anything about me on your trip down here?"
 
"No," he said.
 
"I didn't think he had," she said. "He has always been opposed to either of us saying anything about it to any one. Dear guardy! I know it is for my sake and that he believes it makes it easier for me, and generally it does; but—but sometimes it doesn't." She stopped and looked up suddenly. "But I do think it is more than likely that Mr. Marlin, in his queer way, has said something. Has he?"
 
"Look here," said Locke impulsively, "does it really matter—does it even matter at all? Mr. Marlin did say something, as a matter of fact—yesterday, down there at the boathouse, you know."
 
"What did he say?" she demanded.
 
"Why," Locke smiled, "something about London, and selling flowers."
 
"Well, it is quite true," she said slowly. "That is exactly what I was—a flower girl in London—on the street corners."
 
"I sell bonds—when I can—and wherever I can." Locke was laughing again—he was not quite sure whether he was striving the more to put her or himself at ease. "I can't see any difference on the basis of pure commerce between the two—except perhaps that the flowers are the more honest offering of the two. Bonds sometimes are not always what they seem."
 
She shook her head.
 
"That's very nice of you, Mr. Lock............