But before evening his blueness had disappeared. He had just returned to his room, after stepping into the hall to drop his letter in the mail chute, when his niece knocked at the door. He was surprised to see her, for she had not spoken to him, except in brief reply to questions, since their misunderstanding in that very room. He looked at her wonderingly, not knowing what to say or what to expect; but she spoke first.
“Captain Warren,” she began, hurriedly, “the last time I came to you—the last time I came here, I came to ask a favor, and you—I thought you—”
She was evidently embarrassed and confused. Her guardian was embarrassed, also, but he tried to be hospitable.
“Yes, Caroline,” he said, gravely, “I know what you mean. Won’t you—won’t you sit down?”
To his surprise, she accepted the invitation, taking the same chair she had taken on the occasion of their former interview. But there was a look in her eyes he had never seen there before; at least, not when she was addressing him.
She went on, speaking hastily, as though determined to head off any questioning on his part.
“Captain Warren,” she began once more, “the time I came to you in this room you were, so I thought, unreasonable and unkind. I asked you for money to help a poor family in trouble, and you refused to give it to me.”
“No, Caroline,” he interrupted, “I didn’t refuse, you only thought I did.”
She held up her hand. “Please let me go on,” she begged. “I thought you refused, and I couldn’t understand why. I was hurt and angry. I knew that father never would have refused me under such circumstances, and you were his brother. But since then, only to-day, I have learned that I was wrong. I have learned—”
She paused. The captain was silent. He was beginning to hope, to believe once more in his judgment of character; and yet, with his hope and growing joy, there was a trifle of anxiety.