Her delayed letter, when it came, announced that she was coming home at once; he was to meet her train on the morning after the morrow.
It was a dull autumnal morning when he met her. Her appearance was not less charming than he had imagined it, though the charm was almost inarticulate and there were one or two crude touches that momentarily distressed him. But he met with a flush of emotion all her glances of gaiety and love that were somehow, vaguely, different—perhaps there was a shade less reserve. They went to lunch in the city and at the end of the meal he asked her:
"Well, why have you come back again?"
She looked at him intently: "Guess!"
"I—well, no—perhaps—tell me, Kate, yourself."
"You are different, now, you look different, David."
"Am I changed! Better or worse?"
She did not reply and he continued:
"You, too, are changed, I can't tell how it is, or where, but you are."
"O, I am changed, much changed," murmured Kate.