"What are you thinking of, my Jean," she said then.

"Of what I have been thinking ever since the day when we understood that you and I after all are of the same blood."

"Oh, you have," she chimed, and drawing his face close with her hands, she kissed him ardently.

"Isn't it beautiful, Agnes? Just grand!"

"Oh, Jean, you make me so happy."

"You are honestly happy, dear?" he inquired for the hundredth time.

"I couldn't be happier," and she reposed in his arms.

"Have truly forgotten that you are an Ethiopian, and must share what is Ethiopia's?"

"Will share what is yours, my Jean."

"Always so beautifully have you said that."

"Have I, now, really?"

"Do you recall the day when I forgot, dear, The Custom of the Country—and its law?"

"How could I forget it?"

"And what followed?"

"I cannot forget that, either. But Jean, do you want me to?"

"Agnes, we must both forget what followed. Still, when we think how kind fate has been to us, after all, we must feel grateful."

"Oh, how much I do. But, Jean—it was such a sacrifice...."

He was thoughtful for a time, and from the expression on his face, the present was far away.

"Please, dear," she said, taking his hand and fondling it. "When you happen to think of it; will you try never to allow yourself to resume that expression—that expression again?"

He looked down at her.

"Expression?"

"Like you wore just then."

"Oh."

"You see, it seems to bring back events in your life that we want to forget."

"You mean, I—"

"Yes," she said slowly, "you—we understand each other and everything that has concerned each other, don't we, Jean?"

"Of course we do, Agnes. We have always—but there, now!" and he smothered the rest of it in a fond caress.

"Wasn't it strange," she mused after a time. "I could never understand it. I saw it in my eyes before we left Indiana. And then I had that strange dream and saw you." She paused and played with his fingers. "But I never felt the same afterwards. Somehow I felt that something strange, something unusual was going to happen in my life, and now when I look back upon it and am so happy," whereupon she grasped tightly the fingers she held—"I feel it just had to be."

"Do you reckon your father understood the love that was between us?"

"I think he did. And he started more than once about that time to tell me something. He went so far once as to say that if you liked me, and I cut him off. Afterwards I could see that it worried you and my heart went out to you more than ever. And then you reached your decision. I saw it, and it seems that I liked you more for the man you were."

"Did you love the man you were engaged to?"

"Jean!"