"
He sprang toward her with a wild cry of joy, but she was already
flying down the stairs and out upon the street.
When he joined her, they walked in silence through the rain to her
door, neither speaking a word, until he would have followed her
within. Then she laid her hand upon his shoulder and said gently but
firmly: "Not now, Arthur; we must not see each other again until we
go away. Write me where to meet you, and I will join you within
twenty-four hours. Do not urge me--you must obey me this once--
afterward I will obey you. Good-night."
As she closed the door upon him, he said, "Oh, Joy, I have so much to
tell you. I promised your father when he was dying that I would find
you; I swore to myself that when I found you I would never leave you,
save at your own command. I go now, only because you bid me go.
When we meet again, there must be no more parting; and you shall hear
a story stranger than the wildest fiction--the story of your father's
life. Despite your mother's secretiveness regarding this portion of
her history, the knowledge has come to me in the most unexpected
manner, from the lips of the man himself."
Joy listened dreamily to the words he was saying. Her father--she
was to know who her father was? Well, it did not matter much to her
now--father, mother, what were they, what was anything save the fact
that he had come back to her and that he loved her?
She smiled silently into his eyes.
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