"Well, I'll put it straight to you, Jimmy Belknap; would you like Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe for a sister-in-law?"
"Hum! That depends," said Jimmy Belknap, with a conservative grin. "But I say, Margaret, let's see what we can do about that dinner I seem to smell burning on the range."
While these important events were transpiring in the Belknap household, Mr. John Everett was having divers and sundry experiences of his own. As he plunged down the street in the fast-gathering darkness of the spring night he was conscious of but one desire, and that was to find Jane. Having found her, he knew definitely that he meant never to lose sight of her again. This much was certain, and the fine, drizzling rain which presently began to fall did not serve to dampen his resolution.
There was no car in sight when he reached the corner—no car and no waiting figure. One nearly always waited to the worn limits of one's patience on this particular corner, as Mr. Everett already knew from frequent experience. Traffic was light in this modest, detached suburb, and the traveling public correspondingly meek and long-suffering. But occasionally one did "catch" a car, despite the infrequency of the phenomenon. If Jane had gone—actually gone away into the great, wide, cruel world, how could he ever find her? And not to find Jane meant an aching desolation of spirit which already gripped him by the throat and forced the salt drops to his eyes.
"I will find her!" said John Everett to himself; and then, all at once, he found her.
She was standing under the sparse shelter of a newly leaved tree, her eyes shining big and tearless in the cold, white light of the shuddering arc-light.
"Jane!" cried John Everett. "Thank God I have found you, Jane!"
The girl looked up at him quietly. She did not reply; but the sight of his agitated face seemed to stir some frozen current of life within her. She sighed; then colored painfully over all her fair face. "She has told you," she said, "and you——"
"I love you, Jane," he said impetuously. "I want you to be my wife. O Jane dear, dear girl, don't turn away from me!"