Then I noticed that the sun was gone, and the evening cool was rapidly falling. The little people of the grass whose affairs I had idly watched I could no longer see—gone to their homes maybe; and I turned to mine, desolate as it was, hungry and chilled and alone.
And that evening John Burke brought the sunshine.
CHAPTER X.
PLIGHTED TROTH.
"Helen, you seem tired," John said as I met him at the door—at first I peeped out from behind it, I remember, as if I feared the bogey-man—"Have you been too hard at work?"
"I've been out all the afternoon," I said, "and I suppose I am rather tired, but it was pleasant and warm; and I wore a veil."
There was a little awkward pause after I had ushered him to the reception room, and then, guiding the talk through channels he thought safe, he spoke about his law work, the amusing things that happen at the office, his gratifying progress in his profession.
"Oh," I said, "talking of the law reminds me—some stupid paper was left here to-day."
I found with some difficulty and handed to him the stiff folded legal cap the man had brought.