He listened again and heard nothing. Then he turned the knob softly. The door was unlocked; he opened it and went in.
Laura was sitting in a chair, with her back to a window, her hands in her lap. She was staring straight in front of her.
He came near her hesitatingly, and at first she did not seem to see him or even to know that she was not alone in the room. Then she looked at him wonderingly, and, as he stood beside her, lifted her right hand and set it gently upon his head.
“Hedrick,” she said, “was it you that took my book to——”
All at once he fell upon his knees, hid his face in her lap, and burst into loud and passionate sobbing.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Valentine Corliss, having breakfasted in bed at a late hour that morning, dozed again, roused himself, and, making a toilet, addressed to the image in his shaving-mirror a disgusted monosyllable.
“Ass!”