"I don't think it required much courage."
"You don't know," Allan replied, smiling over her head. "But now, dearest, we are going to begin again and live in a fairy tale and forget all the hard and cruel things. Do you know, I had a vision that day, in the library of the old house? I saw a fire of blazing logs, and you and I sat before it, and we weren't quarrelling."
"Dear old house! I can't bear to look at it now," Celia sighed.
"I am sorry to hear that, for I was planning to live there."
"Allan—you? Wasn't it sold?"
"I bought it through an agent. I thought perhaps I might want to sell again if—if things did not come out as I hoped."
"Even then you were thinking about it?"
"I have thought of nothing else since the day I saw you on the stairs with your arm around Belle."
"How unhappy I was! I did not dream that you still cared. It seems so long ago. Did you know your mother came to see me, Allan?"
"Yes. She has keen eyes; she knew what it meant to me. Poor mother!"