“Why, Mr. White,” she exclaimed, “I never thought of seeing you.  I thought you were always in your office at this time.”

“I waited to see you this morning,” replied Stephen, in a tone as simply honest as her own.  “I wanted to speak to you.”

Mercy looked up inquiringly, but did not speak.  Stephen smiled.

“Oh, not for any particular thing,” he said:  “only for the pleasure of it.”

Then Mercy smiled, and the two looked into each other’s faces with a joy which neither attempted to disguise.  Stephen took Mercy’s basket from her arm; and they walked along in silence, not knowing that it was silence, so full was it of sweet meanings to them in the simple fact that they were walking by each other’s side.  The few words they did speak were of the purposeless and irrelevant sort in which unacknowledged lovers do so universally express themselves in their earlier moments alone together,—­a sort of speech more like birds chirping than like ordinary language.  When they parted at the door of Stephen’s office, he said,—­

“I think you always come to the village about this time in the morning, do you not?”

“Yes, always,” replied Mercy.

“Then, if you are willing, I would like sometimes to walk with you,” said Stephen.

“I like it very much, Mr. White,” answered Mercy, eagerly.  “I used to walk a great deal with Mr. Allen, and I miss it sadly.”

A jealous pang shot through Stephen’s heart.  He had been blind.  This was the reason Harley Allen had taken such interest in finding a home for Mrs. Philbrick and her mother.  He remembered now that he had thought at the time some of the expressions in his friend’s letter argued an unusual interest in the young widow.  Of course no man could know Mercy without loving her.  Stephen was wretched; but no trace of it showed on the serene and smiling face with which he bade Mercy “Good-by,” and ran up his office-stairs three steps at a time.

All day Mercy went about her affairs with a new sense of impulse and cheer.  It was not a conscious anticipation of the morrow:  she did not say to herself “To-morrow morning I shall see him for half an hour.”  Love knows the secret of true joy better than that.  Love throws open wider doors,—­lifts a great veil from a measureless vista:  all the rest of life is transformed into one shining distance; every present moment is but a round in a ladder whose top disappears in the skies, from which angels are perpetually descending to the dreamer below.

The next morning Mercy saw Stephen leave the house even earlier than usual.  Her first thought was one of blank disappointment.  “Why, I thought he meant to walk down with me,” she said to herself.  Her second thought was a perplexed instinct of the truth:  “I wonder if he can be afraid to have his mother see him with me?” At this thought, Mercy’s face burned, and she tried to banish it; but it would not be banished, and by the time her morning duties were done, and she had set out on her walk, the matter had become quite clear in her mind.