He had only a few minutes to wait, for Helen had just returned from a visit to Linda's cottage and was in the library across the hall. He heard her coming and stood up, flushing expectantly, an eager light flashing in his eyes.
“I am taking you by surprise,” he said, as he grasped her extended hand and held it for an instant.
“Well, you know you told me when I left,” Helen said, “that it would be impossible for you to get away from business till after the first of next month, so I naturally supposed—”
“The trouble was”—he laughed as he stood courteously waiting for her to sit before doing so himself—“the trouble was that I didn't know myself then as I do now. I thought I could wait like any sensible man of my age, but I simply couldn't, Helen. After you left, the town was simply unbearable. I seemed not to want to go anywhere but to the places to which we went together, and there I suffered a regular agony of the blues. The truth is, I'm killing two birds with one stone. We were about to send our lawyer to Chattanooga to settle up a legal matter there, and I persuaded my partner to let me do it. So you see, after all, I shall not be wholly idle. I can run up there from here and back, I believe, in the same day.”
“Yes, it is not far,” Helen answered. “We often go up there to do shopping.”
“I'm going to confess something else,” Sanders said, flushing slightly. “Helen, you may not forgive me for it, but I've been uneasy.”
“Uneasy?” Helen leaned as far back in her chair as she could, for he had bent forward till his wide, hungry eyes were close to hers.
“Yes, I've fought the feeling every day and night since you left. At times my very common-sense would seem to conquer and I'd feel a little better about it, but it would only be a short time till I'd be down in the dregs again.”
“Why, what is the matter?” Helen asked, half fearfully.
“It was your letters, Helen,” he said, his handsome face very grave as he leaned towards her.