She smiled again, and for the first time he realized something new in her amusement—a kind of repressed earnestness.
"I'm not afraid. Do you want me to go away?"
"No—you don't know how glad——" He broke off painfully, but she did not look at him or seem to notice that he had faltered. She bent down and put something which she had been carrying to the ground. It was a round yellow something which unrolled itself and developed four short legs, a stumpy tail, a sharp little head peering out of a mass of fluffiness, and a strenuous, defiant yap.
"I don't know what it is," Sigrid said gravely. "Perhaps God does—I don't think any one else could even guess. But I thought you'd like it."
"I don't understand," he said gently. He picked the little creature up and rubbed its black nose against his cheek. Then, looking at it, he burst into a big roar of real amusement. "My word, what an absurdity!"
"Yes, isn't it? And utterly forsaken. Mr. Radcliffe found it somewhere with a rope and a brickbat round its neck. That's why I thought you'd like it. At first, I meant to get you something first-rate—a thoroughbred with a pedigree—and then I thought you'd like this better. You see, it's a sort of memorial to Wickie. You know what people do when some one dies whom they love—they build something or endow something—something the dead person would like. Well, I think Wickie would like you to adopt that puppy."
He looked at her. There was a real tenderness in her eyes as they met his. He fancied that her lips were not quite steady.
"If you say so, it must be so," he said. "Wickie loved you. You knew all about him."
"We knew all about each other." She hesitated and then asked, "You'll keep my puppy?"
"Rather! It's been horribly lonely—I've wanted someone to give my scraps to——"