"Jack, what is it?" she asked, quietly.
Their eyes met as she spoke, and before his could fall, she said: "Tell me, tell me what it is——"
It seemed to him, that instant, that he ceased to breathe.
He fairly wrenched his eyes from hers. "Flo"—it was not often of late that he called her by this name of his own invention—"Flo, I—I——"
"Tell me," she whispered, leaning toward him.
"Flo, it's all off."
He got up quickly and strode out into the hallway, and back again.
He stood beside the bookcase and looked at her, across the room, where she sat between the windows, the little smile, only, perhaps fainter now, still hovering about her lips.
"I understand, dear," she said simply.
The relief her words carried to him filled him with as keen and as complete a joy as he had ever felt.