She bowed her head, unable to speak for the second.

"And you show it too," with an awed look into her lovely face, spiritualized by illness, as he took her extended hand.

"Yes," recovering herself, "but I'm nearly well now--how are they all in Killamet?"

"Oh, so-so, I guess; but I haven't been home to stay any since last month--soon after Cousin Prue was here, it was. I had business in Norcross yesterday, and I come over from there by train. Mother wrote about your having the fever."

She had motioned him to a chair, and dropped into another herself, feeling weak in body, and perplexed in mind. Why had he come? Was _he_ the answer to her repining thoughts? His voice roused her from the sort of lethargic state into which she had dropped for a moment.

"Sairay," he said, with a little choke, "I--I couldn't stay away any longer--when I heard about you--and I've come"--

He stopped again, but she did not help him out--she could not. With her fingers locked together in her lap, she waited for what was coming, with the feeling that she was drifting down stream, and had neither the strength, nor inclination, to arrest her swift descent. He drew a sigh that was almost a gasp, and plunged on,--

"Sairay, it's too hard for you--all--all this--and I--Oh! you know how I love you--I've always loved you, and what is the use in your working so when I'd give my very eyes to take care of you? Don't speak, Sairay," raising his hand in protest, "I've got a-going, now, and I want to say it all. I know I'm not good enough for you--who is?--but if love that never tires, and kindness, and--and--being as true as steel, and as tender as a mother, can count for anything, they'll plead for me, Sairay; I'm not much on fine speech-making, as you know."

He had risen, and stood before her, tall and stalwart, and, for the moment, such strength and tenderness seemed good to her--why not accept them, and be at rest? Perhaps he felt her yielding mood; at any rate, he held out both hands with an a.s.sured gesture.

"Say yes, Sairay--tell me you"--

There was a jarring slam and a flood of light; one of the shutters had blown open. Both started, glanced around, then faced each other again; but that noisy interruption had thoroughly aroused Sara. She looked at Jasper in this brighter light, and a quick revulsion of feeling swept over her. What was she doing? Would she lie to him?

She did not love him; did she dare to tell him that she did? A thought of another manly figure, bearing a certain refinement and n.o.bility lacking in this, rose before her mind's eye, and when Jasper finished his sentence--"tell me you love me!" her answer was ready.

"I can't, Jasper," she said low, but firmly, "It wouldn't be"--

He stopped her again.

"Don't answer me now; take time to think--take till tomorrow. This is too sudden; n.o.body can know their minds all in a minute. I'll come again when you've had time to think."

She shook her head.

"No, Jasper, that is not necessary. You have always been one of my best friends--be so still! But--that is all. I can't give you what you ask for, and time will never change me--don't think it. The best way is to have perfect truth between us. Now, Jasper," trying to speak easily, "put this aside, and stay with us this evening. I want you to see Morton and"--

"I can't," said Jasper, in a voice of intense calmness (she could imagine him giving an order in just that tone, when life or death hung on the proper execution of it), "I--must go. You--you're sure you know your mind?"

"Yes, sure."

He picked up his hat,--she noticed it was a silk tile, and thought vaguely how incongruous it looked upon him, though she was used to little else among the students,--and jammed it absently down on his head, as he was accustomed to fasten on his tarpaulin during a storm.

"Good-by" he said hoa.r.s.ely, turning towards the door.

She stepped towards him.

"Jasper, wait!"

He obeyed--but reluctantly.

"I beg of you, don't let this make you feel hard towards us all. I have depended on your goodness all my life--don't let it fail me now!"

She held out her hand with that look which few could resist, a look of winning trustfulness words cannot describe. Jasper hesitated, turned, looked into her face--and yielded.

"Sairay," he said, grasping her hand closely, "it's no use; you always did have your way, and you always will! I'll be anything to you that you want me to be, but--it's bitter hard luck!" and, wringing her hand till it ached, he left her.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE PRINCE COMETH.

"A letter from Mrs. Macon, I think," said Morton, handing it across the table to Sara, with a glance at the western postmark.

"I shouldn't wonder if it is to announce their return," she remarked, opening it.

"Heaven forbid!" groaned Molly. "I love the Macons, but I adore their home! Why don't you praise these m.u.f.fins, Morton? I made 'em."

"Is that what ails them?" making a wry face. "Give me another at once.

We must make way with them as fast as possible!" and Molly pa.s.sed him the plate, with a well-pleased laugh.

"Yes," interrupted Sara, looking up, "they will be at home inside of a fortnight, but she kindly says,--

"'Don't hurry to find rooms. I want to help you decide, and I shall be so glad to come home to a houseful of young people rather than to the usual gloom and stuffiness of long-closed rooms; besides, I have a proposition to make you.'"

"What can it be?" cried Molly. "She may want me to stay, in place of Hetty, for cook." "And me for coachman," added Morton, b.u.t.tering his third m.u.f.fin.

"Then, Sara, there is nothing left for you but to be lady's maid!"

giggled the other twin.

"I should rather like the position," smiled Sara, "to read aloud to her, answer her notes, do her errands, and"--

"b.u.t.ton her boots!" put in atrocious Molly again, at which Morton slapped at her with his napkin, when she fled--pursued by him--to the veranda, where decency demanded a cessation of hostilities.

Sara soon joined them, and a little later, Preston Garth,--who was back in town for a day or so, to a.s.sist in setting up some new apparatus lately arrived at the laboratory,--strolled up the walk.

"You're too late!" exclaimed Molly saucily, as he dropped upon the upper step, and began fanning himself vigorously with his hat; "Morton's eaten up all the m.u.f.fins, and I think Sara finished the peaches."

"And I suppose, as usual, Miss Molly had nothing," was the ironic reply.

"Oh, a trifle--not worth mentioning"--

"Yes, Molly has a starved appearance, as you may have observed," put in Sara. "But, Mr. Garth, in spite of her discouraging remarks, I think we could find"--

"Oh, thank you, Miss Olmstead--I have been to tea; just left the table, in fact, and am on my way back to the museum, so dropped in here. Has anybody noticed the sunset to-night?" All turned to observe it (the house fronted towards the south), and simultaneously exclaimed at its grandeur. The sun was just dropping behind a thunderous bank of clouds, closely resembling a range of mountains capped with snow, now tinged ruddily with the dying light, and between these crowding peaks was an arched opening, as if a vaulted pa.s.sageway had been blasted through the ma.s.s of rock, giving a vista of pale blue sky, from which radiated prismic bars of light, while way above the topmost peak, like some beacon-light suspended high, swung the new moon, a slender crescent, also near its setting.

"Oh, I saw it over my right shoulder!" cried Molly gayly. "Don't you long to hear what wish I made?"

"Not half so much as you long to tell it," replied Morton cruelly.