He took it out and opened it. On the first page was written, 'To Alice, from Litvinoff.'
He stood looking at it fixedly—so absorbed that he did not hear Alice's foot on the stairs, nor notice the rustle of her dress in the room, till she said,—
'Have you been here long? I am so sorry I had to run out for some thread for my work. I thought I should have been back before.'
She was a little out of breath with running upstairs, and a little flushed, too. He now saw that she was prettier than he had thought, but he also saw more plainly the hollows in her cheeks and the dark circles round her eyes.
'I must make a confession,' he began at once, turning to her with the book in his hand. 'I have asked myself, was it chance made you take this name of Litvinoff? But I see now you have a right to it.'
She turned her head and looked towards the window in silence for a moment. Then she said,—
'I do not know that I have a right to any name except the one I was born to; but if I have a right to any it is to the one written there.' It was said slowly and with evident effort. She threw her bonnet on the table, leaned her elbows on the window-ledge, and looked out.
'Won't you sit down?' she asked, after a minute, without looking round.
He took a chair, and said, 'Then it wasn't only for the lecture you went to Soho?'