“It was so good of you to come,” she murmured humbly.  “It wasn’t—­it didn’t bother you?  You were not wanting to do something else, were you, dear?” There was revealed in tone and manner the fact that even selfish Frances had come to care for something more than for herself.

“No—­oh, no,” he replied, rather breathlessly.  “I was going up the country this afternoon, but fortunately I got your letter in time.”

“Oh, if you had!  What should I have done?  I couldn’t stand it any longer, Guthrie.  It is four whole months—­since—­though it seems like yesterday—­”

“And how are you?” he broke in, taking a fresh grip of the sword, as it were.

He held her off from him, glancing at her shoulder, her skirt—­ anything but her eyes, which were her sword, two-edged and deadly.

“Oh, don’t look at me!” she exclaimed, shrinking.  “I hate myself in this horrible gown—­I feel so mean and hypocritical—­though I do mourn for him, Guthrie.  You must not think I feel happy because he is dead—­no, indeed; I wish I could!  But one must conform to a certain extent, mustn’t one?  And every respect that I can possibly show to his memory—­especially after the way he has treated me!  I suppose you heard—­” “What?” Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill time.

“Five thousand a year,” said she, “at my absolute and entire disposal, with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind.”

She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man.  “And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!”

“Oh, so did I!  Far—­far too good for the likes of me.  But—­well, we need not talk about that now.  We couldn’t help ourselves, could we?  And the past is past; everything is different now.  Oh, Guthrie, what it is to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!”

She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her.  Of course he kissed her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he wore an evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it.  She might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself at the moment in a mirror behind him.

“One thing,” she said, “I did draw the line at.  I positively refused to wear a cap.  I knew—­I knew you couldn’t have borne that!” Holding her charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils, just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this statement.  “You couldn’t have stood seeing me in a cap, could you, Guthrie?” “As far as I can judge,” he replied, “nobody asks you to wear caps these days, whether you’re a widow or not.  Why, the very grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the least.  When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies—­my mother was one; but the race has died out.”