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AT EXACTLY four-thirty-six of the same afternoon—precision in matter of time being almost forced upon one in the jeweller's repair business—A. M. Belshue, watch tinker and village infidel, sat at his desk with the light from his dingy window filtering down over him and with his magnifying glass screwed monstrously into his left eye. He was soldering together the broken hand of a tiny Swiss watch and was getting along badly with his work. He interrupted himself every few minutes by leaning forward and peering at an acute angle through his window down the street. The reason for this was that at some uncertain moment at about this time of the afternoon Nessie Sutton would walk out of the Grand, where she worked, on her way home. And if he could hit the exact moment of her departure, he could, by leaning forward and peering at an angle, get a ten- or twelve-second view of the milliner's assistant as she walked away.

Belshue's nervous straining after a glimpse of the girl told several things about the jeweller. One was that he did not feel at all sure of Miss Sutton; another, that he had never put his arms about her and kissed her, for just as marriage loses for the husband all those little eagernesses and ardours which go to make up the lover, so the ripening familiarities of courtship destroy those first gazings and wistfulness of the eye which serve as airy kisses and caresses until some soldier demonstration takes their place.

As the time drew near when Nessie either must go, or else already had gone without having been seen—this last a painful possibility—Mr. Belshue abandoned his task altogether, got up, walked around the little railing which kept