I'VE MARRIED MARJORIE

by

MARGARET WIDDEMER

Author of "Why Not, " "The Wishing Ring Man, " "You're Only Young Once, " "The Boardwalk, " etc. 

A. L. Burt CompanyPublishersNew YorkPublished by arrangement with Harcourt, Brace and Howe

Copyright, 1920, byThe Crowell Publishing Company

Copyright, 1920, byHarcourt, Brace and Howe, Inc. 

I'VE MARRIED MARJORIE

CHAPTER I

The sun shone, that morning, and even from a city office window theSpring wind could be felt, sweet and keen and heady, making you feelthat you wanted to be out in it, laughing, facing toward the exciting, happy things Spring was sure to be bringing you, if you only went alittle way to meet them--just a little way!

Marjorie Ellison, bending over a filing cabinet in a small and solitaryroom, felt the wind, and gave her fluffy dark head an answering, wistful lift. It was a very exciting, Springy wind, and winds andweathers affected her too much for her own good. Therefore she gavethe drawer she was working on an impatient little push which nearlyshook the Casses down into the Cats--she had been hunting for a veryimportant letter named Cattell, which had concealed itselfviciously--and went to the window as if she was being pulled there. 

She set both supple little hands on the broad stone sill, and lookeddownward into the city street as you would look into a well. The windwas blowing sticks and dust around in fairy rings, and a motor car orso ran up and down, and there were the usual number of the usual kindof people on the sidewalks; middle-aged people principally, for most ofthe younger inhabitants of New York are caged in offices at ten in themorning, unless they are whisking by in the motors. Mostly elderlyladies in handsome blue dresses, Marjorie noticed. She liked it, anddrew a deep, happy breath of Spring air. Then suddenly over all thepleasure came a depressing black shadow. And yet what she had seen wassomething which made most people smile and feel a little happier; acouple of plump, gay young returned soldiers going down the street armin arm, and laughing uproariously at nothing at all for the sheerpleasure of being at home. She turned away from the window feeling asif some one had taken a piece of happiness away from her, and snatchedthe nearest paper to read it, and take the taste of what she had seenout of her mouth. It was a last night's paper with the back page fullof "symposium. " She read a couple of the letters, and dropped thepaper and went back desperately to her filing cabinet. 

"Cattell--Cattell----" she whispered to herself very fast, rifflingover the leaves desperately. Then she reverted to the symposium andthe soldiers. "Oh, dear, everybody on that page was writing letters toknow why they didn't get married, " she said. "I wish somebody wouldwrite letters telling why they _did_, or explain to those poor girlsthat say nobody wants to marry a refined girl that they'd better leaveit alone!"

After that she hunted for the Cattell letter till she found it. Thenshe took it to her superior, in the next room. Then she returned toher work and rolled the paper up into a very small ball and dropped itinto the big wastebasket, and pushed it down with a small, neatoxford-tied foot. Then she went to the window again restlessly, lookedout with caution, as if there might be more soldiers crossing thestreet, and they might spring at her. But there were none; only a fat, elderly gentleman gesticulating for a taxi and looking so exactly likea _Saturday Evening Post_ cover that he almost cheered her. Marjoriehad a habit of picking up very small, amusing things and being amusedby them. And then into the office bounced the one girl she hadn't seenthat day. 

"Oh, Mrs. Ellison, congratulations! I just got down, or I'd have beenhere before!" she gasped, kissing Marjorie hard three times. Then shestood back and surveyed Marjorie tenderly until she wanted to pick thewad of paper out of the basket and throw it at her. "Coming back toyou!" she said softly. "Oh, you must be thrilled!" She put her headon one side--she wore her hair in a shock of bobbed curls whichMarjorie loathed anyway, and they flopped when she wished to beemphatic--and surveyed Marjorie with prolonged, tender interest. "Anytime now!" she breathed. 

"Yes, " said Marjorie desperately. "The ship will be in some time nextweek. Yes, I'm thrilled. It's--it's wonderful. Thank you, MissKaplan, I knew you would be sympathetic. "

One hand was clenching and unclenching itself where Miss Kaplan, fortunately a young person whose own side of emotions occupied herexclusively, could not see it. 

Miss Kaplan kissed her, quite uninvited, again, said "_Dear_ littlewar-bride!" and--just in time, Marjorie always swore, to save herselffrom death, fled out. 

It is all very well to be a war-bride when there's a war, but the warwas over. 

"And I'm married, " Marjorie said when the door had swung to behind MissKaplan, "for life!"

She was twenty-one. She was little and slender, with a wistful, verysweet face like a miniature; big dark-blue eyes, a small mouth thattipped down a little at the indented corners, and a transparently roseand white skin. She looked a great deal younger even than she was, andher being Mrs. Ellison had amused every one, including herself, for thelast year she had used the name. As she sat down at her desk again, and looked helplessly at the keen, dark young face surmounted by anofficer's cap, that for very shame's sake she had not taken away fromher desk, she looked like a frightened little girl. And she _was_frightened. 

It had been very thrilling, if scary, to be married to Francis Ellison, when he wasn't around. The letters--the _dear_ letters!--and thewatching for mails, and being frightened when there were battles, andwearing the new wedding-ring, had made her perfectly certain that whenFrancis came back she would be very glad, and live happily ever after. And now that he was coming she was just plain frightened, suffocatingly, abjectly scared to death. 

"I mustn't be!" she told herself, trying to give herself orders to feeldifferently. "I _must_ be very glad!" But it was impossible to doanything with herself. She continued to feel as if her execution wasnext week, instead of her reunion with a husband who wrote that he waslooking forward to----

"If he didn't describe kissing me, " shivered poor little Marjorie toherself, "so accurately!"

She had met Francis just about a month before they were married. Hehad come to see her with her cousin, who was in the same company atPlattsburg. Her cousin was engaged to a dear friend of hers, and ithad made it very nice for all four of them, because Billy and Lucilleweren't war-fiancés by any means. They had been engaged for a coupleof years, in a more or less silent fashion, and the war had given thema chance to marry. One doesn't think so much about ways and means whenthe man is going to war and can send you an allotment. 

Francis, dark, quick, decided, with a careless gaiety that was likethat of a boy let out from school, had been a delightful person to pairoff with. And then the other two had been so wrapped up in thewonderful chance to get married which opened out before them, thatmarriage--a beautiful, golden, romantic thing--had been in the air. One felt out of it if one didn't marry. Everybody else was marrying inshoals. And Francis had been crazy over little Marjorie from themoment he saw her--over her old-fashioned, whimsical ways, her smalldefiances that covered up a good deal of shyness, over the littlenessand grace that made him want to pick her up and pet her and protecther, he said . . . Marjorie could remember, even yet, with pleasure, the lovely things he had said to her in that tense way he had on therare occasions when he wasn't laughing. She had fought off marryinghim till the very last minute. And then the very day before theregiment sailed she had given in, and the other two--married two weeksby then--had whisked her excitedly through it. And then they'drecalled him--just two hours after they were married, while Marjoriewas sitting in the suite at the hotel, with Francis kneeling down byher in his khaki, his arms around her waist, looking up at heradoringly. She could see his face yet, uplifted and intense, and theway it had turned to a mask when the knock came that announced thetelegram. 

And it seemed now almost indecent that she should have let him kneelthere with his head against her laces, calling her his wife. She hadsmiled down at him, then, shyly, and--half-proud, half-timid--hadthought it was very wonderful. 

"When I see him it will be all right! When we meet it will all comeback!" she said half-aloud, walking restlessly up and down the office. "It must. It will have to. "

But in her heart she knew that she was wishing desperately that the warhad lasted ages longer, that he had been kept a year after the end ofthe war instead of eight months; almost, down deep in her heart whereshe couldn't get at it enough to deny it, that he had beenkilled. . . . Well, she had a week longer, anyway. You can do a greatdeal with yourself in a week if you bully hard. And the ships werealmost always a much longer time getting in than anybody said theywould be, and then they sent you to camps first. 

Marjorie had the too many nerves of the native American, but she hadthe pluck that generally goes with them. She forced herself to sitquietly down and work at her task, and wished that she could stop beingangry at herself for telling Lucille that Francis had written he wascoming home. Because Lucille worked where she did, and had promptlyspread the glad tidings from the top of the office to the bottom, andher morning had been a levee. Even poor little Mrs. Jardine, whose boyhad been killed before he had been over two weeks, had spoken toMarjorie brightly, and said how glad she was, and silent, stiff MissGardner, who was said never to have had any lovers in her life, hadlooked at her with an envy she tried to hide, and said that shesupposed Marjorie was glad. 

"Well, it's two weeks, maybe. Two weeks is ages. "

Marjorie dived headfirst into the filing cabinet again, and was sayingto herself very fast, "Timmins, Tolman, Turnbull--oh, dear, _Turnbull_----" when, very softly, the swinging-door that shut her offfrom the rest of the office was pushed open again, and some one crossedsharply to her side. She flung up her head in terror. Suppose itshould be Francis--

Well, it was. 

She had no more than time for one gasp before he very naturally had herin his arms, as one who has a right, and was holding her so tight shecould scarcely breathe. She tried to kiss him back, but it washalf-hearted. She hoped, her mind working with a cold, quickprecision, that he could not tell that she did not love him. Andapparently he could not. He let her go after a minute, and flunghimself down by her in just the attitude that the knock on the door, fifteen months ago, had interrupted. And Marjorie tried not to stiffenherself, and not to wonder if anybody was coming in, and not to feelthat a perfect stranger was doing something he had no right to. 

It was to be supposed that she succeeded more or less, because when hefinally let her go, he looked at her as fondly as he had when heentered, and began to talk, without much preface, very much as if hehad only been gone a half hour. 

"They'll let you off, won't they, for the rest of the day? But ofcourse they will! I almost ran over an old gentleman outside here, andit comes to me now that he said something like 'take your wife home forto-day, my boy!' I was in such a hurry to get at you, Marge, that Ididn't listen. My wife! Good Lord, to think I have her again!"

She got her breath a little, and stopped shivering, and looked at him. He had not changed much; one does not in fifteen months. It was thesame eager, dark young face, almost too sharply cut for a young man's, with very bright dark eyes. The principal difference was in hisexpression. Before he went he had had a great deal of expression, aface that showed almost too much of what he thought. That was gone. His face was younger-looking, because the flashing of changes over itwas gone. He looked wondering, very tired, and dulled somehow. And hespoke without the turns of speech that she and her friends amused eachother with, the little quaintnesses of conscious fancy. "As if he'dbeen talking to children, " she thought. 

Then she remembered that it was not that. He had been giving orders, and taking them, and being on firing-lines; all the things that he hadwritten her about, and that had seemed so like story-books when she gotthe letters. His being so changed made it real for the firsttime. . . . And then an unworthy feeling--as if she simply could notface the romantic and tender eyes of all the office--everybody havingthe same feelings about her that Miss Kaplan had, even if they werewell-bred enough to phrase them politely. 

"Shall we go?" she asked abruptly, while this feeling was strong in her. 

"Not for a minute. I want to see the place where my wife has spent herlast year . . . "

He stood with his arm still around her--would he never stop touchingher?--and surveyed the office with the same sort of affectionateamusement he might have given to a workbasket of hers, or a piece ofembroidery. Marjorie slipped from under his arm and put her hat on. 

"I'm ready now, " she said. 

They walked out of the little office, and through the long aisle downthe center of the floor of the office-building, Marjorie, stillmiserably conscious of the eyes, and the emotions behind the eyes, andquite as conscious that they were emotions that she ought to be ashamedof minding. 

"Now where shall we go for luncheon?" demanded Francis joyously, asthey got outside. He caught her hand in his surreptitiously and said"You darling!" under his breath. For a minute the old magic of hisswift courtship came back to her, and she forgot the miserableoppression of facing fifty years of wedded life with a stranger; andshe smiled up at him. Then, as he caught her hand in his, quiteundisguisedly this time, and held it under his arm, the repulsion cameback. 

"Anywhere you like, " she answered his question. 

"We'll go to the biggest, wildest, wooliest place in the city, wherethe band plays the most music, " he announced. "Going to celebrate. Come on, honey. And then I have a fine surprise for you, as soon as wego back to the flat. Lucille won't be back till five, will she? Andthank goodness for that!"

Lucille and Marjorie, pending the return of their husbands, shared atiny flat far uptown on the west side. Marjorie had described it atlength in her letters, until Francis had said that he could find hisway around it if he walked in at midnight. But his intimacy with itmade her feel that there was no place on earth she could call her own. 

"Tell me now, " she demanded. 

Francis laughed again, and shook his head. 

"It will do you good to guess. Come now, which--Sherry's or the Plazaor the Ritz?"

"Sherry's--they're going to close it soon, poor old place!"

"Then we'll celebrate its obsequies, " said Francis, grinning cheerfully. 

Before he went he had smiled, somehow, as if he had been to a veryexcellent college and a super-fine prep school of many traditions--as, indeed, he had--but now it was exactly the grin, Marjorie realized, still with a feeling of unworthiness, of the soldier, sailor, andmarine grinning so artlessly from the War Camp Community posters. Inhis year of foreign service, Francis had shaken off the affectations ofhis years, making him, at twenty-five, a much older and more valuableman than Marjorie had parted with. But she didn't like it, or what sheglimpsed of it. Whether he was gay in this simple, new way, or gravein the frighteningly old one, he was not the Francis she had built upfor herself from a month's meetings and a few memories. 

He smiled at her flashingly again as they settled themselves at thelittle table in just the right spot and place they had chosen. 

"Wondering whether I'll eat with my knife?" he demanded, quite atrandom as it happened, but altogether too close to Marjorie's feelingsto be comfortable. 

She colored up to her hair. 

"No--no! I _know_ you wouldn't do that!" she asseverated so earnestlythat he went off into another gale of affectionate laughter. 

And then he addressed himself to the joyous task of planning a luncheonthat they would never of them either forget, he said. He took thewaiter into their confidence to a certain degree, and from then on acircle of silent and admiring service inclosed them. 

"But you needn't think we're going to linger over it, Marjorie, " heinformed her. "I want to get up to where you live, and be alone withyou. "

"Of course, " said Marjorie mechanically, saying a little prayer to theeffect that she needed a great deal of help to get through thissituation, and she hoped it would come in sight soon. She could noteat very much. It was all very good, and the band played ravishinglyto the ears of Francis, who sent buoyantly across and demanded suchtunes as he was fondest of. There was one which they played to whichhe sang, under his breath, a profane song which ran in part:

 "And we'll all come home And get drunk on ginger pop-- For the slackers voted the country dry While we went over the top. "

And then, when the meal was two-thirds over, Marjorie wished she hadn'toffered up any prayers for help to get through the situation. Becausesoftly up to their table strolled a tall, thin young man with a cane, gray silk gloves, and a dreamy if slightly nervous look, and saiddiscontentedly, "Marjorie Ellison! How wonderful to find you here!You will let me sit down at your table, won't you, and meet yoursoldier-friend?"

If Marjorie had never written to Francis about Bradley Logan it wouldhave been all right, quite a rescue, in fact. But in those too fatallydiscursive letters; the letters which had come finally to feel like asympathetic diary with no destination, she had rather enlarged on him. He had been admiring her at disconnected intervals ever since she firstmet him. He had not been able to get in the army because of somemysterious neurasthenic ailment about which he preserved a hurtsilence, as to details, but mentioned a good deal in a general way. Itkept him from making engagements, it made him unable to go longdistances; Marjorie had described all the scattered hints about it inher letters to Francis, who had promptly written back that undoubtedlythe little friend had fits; and referred to him thereafter, quitewithout malice, as, "your fit-friend. " She had an insane terror, asshe introduced him, lest she should explain him to Francis in anaudible aside by that name. However, it was unnecessary. Francisplaced him immediately, it was to be seen, and was cold almost torudeness. Logan did not notice it much. He sat down with them, declined the food Marjorie offered, ordered himself three slivers ofdry toast and a cup of lemonless and creamless tea, and sipped them andnibbled them as if even they were a concession to manners. 

What really was the matter with Logan Marjorie was doomed never toknow. Francis told her afterwards, with a certain marital brevity, that it was a combination of dry toast and thinking too much aboutFrench poets. His literary affiliations, which he earned his livingby, had stopped short at the naughty nineties, when everybody was veryunhealthy and soulful and hinted darkly at tragedies; the period of theYellow Book and Aubrey Beardsley and Arthur Symons and Dowson, and thelast end of Wilde. He undoubtedly had the charming and fluent mannersof his time, anachronism though he was. And he talked a great deal, and very brilliantly, if a bit excitedly. He plunged now, in hischarming, high, slightly too mannered voice, into a discussion withMarjorie on the absolute rottenness of the modern magazine, consideredfrom the viewpoint of style. He overwhelmed them with instances of howall magazines were owned by persons who neither had cultivation nordesired any. Francis answered him very little, so Marjorie, wifelybefore her time, found herself trying nervously to keep up with Logan, and hurling more thoughts at him about Baudelaire than she had knownshe possessed. As a matter of fact she'd never read any of him, butLogan thought she had to his dying day, which says a good deal for herbrains. Presently Francis summoned the waiter in rather a martialvoice, demanded a taxi of him efficiently, and Marjorie found herselfswept away from Logan and taxi-ing extravagantly uptown before she knewwhat she was at. 

Francis wasn't cross, it appeared. The first thing he did when he gother in the cab was to sweep her close to him--the second to burst intoa peal of delighted laughter, and quote

 "I had a cow, a gentle cow, who browsed beside my door, Did not think much of Maeterlinck, and would not, furthermore!"

"Heavens!" he ended, "that fool and his magazine editors! Nobody butyou could have been so patient with the poor devil, Marge. "

He leaned her and himself back in the cab, and stared contemplativelyout at New York going by. "And to think--and--to--think--that whilehalf of decent humanity has been doing what it's been doing to keep theworld from going to hell, that fool--that _fool_--has been sitting athome nibbling toast and worrying about what is style! . . . I'll tellhim! Style is what I'll have when I get these clothes off, and someregular ones. You'll have to help me pick 'em out, Marge. You'll findI've no end of uses for a wife, darling. "

"I hope you'll make me useful, " she answered in a small voice. Fortunately she saw the ridiculousness of what she had said herselfbefore the constrained note of her voice reached her husband, andbegan, a little nervously, to laugh at herself. So that passed off allright. 

"Will life be just one succession of hoping things pass off all right?"she wondered. And she did wish Francis wasn't so scornful about allthe things Logan said. For Logan, in spite of his mysteriousdisability, was very brilliant; he wrote essays for real magazines thatyou had to pay thirty-five cents for, and when Marjorie said she knewhim people were always very respectful and impressed. Marjorie hadbeen brought up to respect such things very much, herself, in a prettyWestchester suburb, where celebrities were things which passed throughin clouds of glory, lecturing for quite as much as the club felt itcould afford. A celebrity who let you talk to him, nay, seemeddelighted when you let him talk to you, couldn't be as negligible asFrancis seemed to think him. . . . Francis didn't seem as if he hadever read _anything_. . . . It was a harmless question to ask, atleast. 

"What did you read, over there?" she asked him. 

"We read anything we could get hold of that would take our minds, " wasthe answer, rather grimly. Then, more lightly, "When I wasn't readingdetective stories I was studying books on forestry. Did you know youhad married a forester bold, Marge?"

"Of course I remembered you said that was what you did, " she answered, relieved that the talk was veering away, for one moment, fromthemselves. 

"Poor little girl, you haven't had a chance to know very much aboutme, " he said tenderly. "Well, I know a lot more about it than I didwhen I went away. Oh, the trees in France, dear! It's worse to thinkof the trees than of the people, I think sometimes. I suppose that'sbecause they always meant a lot to me--very much as a jeweler wouldfeel badly about all the spoons the Crown Prince took home withhim. . . . Anyway, they wanted me to stay over there and doreforestation. Big chances. But I didn't feel as if I could stay awayfrom little old New York--naturally Marge had nothing to do withit--another hour. Would you have liked to go to Italy and watch mere-forest, Marjorie?"

Marjorie's "Oh, _no_!" was very fervent. She also found herselfthinking stealthily that even any one as efficient as Francis could notreforest the city of New York, and that therefore any position he hadwould very likely let her off. Maybe he might go very soon. 

With this thought in her mind she led the way up the three flights ofstairs to the tiny apartment she and Lucille Strong shared. If Francishad not spoken as they reached the door she might have carried itthrough. But just as she fitted her key in the door he did speak, behind her, an arm about her. 

"In another minute you and I will be alone together; in our ownhome--my wife----"

He took the key gently from her hand; he unlocked the door, and drewher in, with his arms around her. He pushed the door to behind them, and bent down to kiss her again, very tenderly and reverently. And inthat instant Marjorie's self-control broke. 

CHAPTER II

"Oh, please don't touch me, just for a minute!" she exclaimed. "Please--please--just stop a _minute_!"

She did not realize that her tone was very much that of a patientaddressing a dentist. Francis's arms dropped, and he looked at her, all the light going out of his face, and showing its weary lines. Heclosed the door entirely, carefully. He went mechanically over to achair and sat down on it, always with that queer carefulness; he laidhis cap beside him, and looked at Marjorie, crouched against the door. 

"Please come over here and sit down, " he said very courteously, butwith the boyishness gone from his voice even more completely thanMarjorie had wished. 

She came very meekly and sat opposite him, with a little queer coldfeeling around her heart. 

"Please look at me, " he asked gently. She lifted her blue eyesmiserably to his, and tried to smile. But unconsciously she shrank alittle as she did so, and he saw it. 

"I won't touch you--not until you want me to, " he began. "What's thematter, Marjorie? Is it nerves, or are you afraid of me, or----"

"It--it was just your coming so suddenly, " she lied miserably. "Itupset me. That was all. "

In her mind there was fixed firmly the one thing, that she mustn't be acoward, she must go through with it, she must pretend well enough tomake Francis think she felt the way she ought to. The Francis ofpre-war times would have been fooled; but this man had been judging menand events that took as keen a mind as seeing through a frightenedgirl. He looked at her musingly, his face never changing. She roseand came over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. She evenmanaged to laugh. 

"Do you mind my being upset?" she asked. 

"No, " he said, "if that's all it is. But you have a particular kind ofterror about you that I don't like. Or I think you have. "

She took her hand away, hurt by the harshness of his voice--then, seeing his face, understood that he was not knowingly harsh. She hadhurt him terribly by that one unguarded moment, and she would have towork very hard to put it out of sight. 

"I--I haven't any terror----" she began to say. 

He made himself smile a little at that. 

"You mustn't have, " he said. "We'll sit down on the davenport overthere that Lucille's grandmother gave her for a wedding-present--yousee how well I remember the news about all the furniture? And we'lltalk about it all quietly. "

"There's nothing to talk about, " said Marjorie desperately. She wentobediently over to the davenport and sat down by him. 

"You were upset at seeing me?" he began. 

"It was--well, it was so sudden!" dimpled Marjorie, quoting the tagwith the sudden whimsicality which even death would probably find herusing. 

"And I still seem--do I seem like a strange person to you, dear?" heasked wistfully. "You don't seem strange to me, you know. You seemlike the wife I love. "

The worst of it was that when Francis was gay and like a playmate, ashe had been at their luncheon before Logan came, she could feel thatthings were nearly all right. But when he spoke as he was speaking nowthe terror of him came back worse than ever. 

"No. No, you don't seem strange at all, " she said. "Why should you?"But while she spoke the words she knew they were not true. She lookedat him, and his face was like a stranger's face. She had known othermen as well as she had known her husband, except for the brief whilewhen she had promised to marry him. She took stock of his features;the straight, clearly marked black brows under the mark the cap made onhis forehead; the rather high cheekbones, the clear-cut nose and chin, the little line of black mustache that did not hide his hard-set andyet sensitive lips; the square, rather long jaw--"He'll have deep linesat the sides of his mouth in a few more years, " she thought, and--"He'smuch darker than I remembered him. But he has no color under thebrown. I thought he had a good deal of color . . . " She appraised hisface, not liking it altogether, as if she had never seen it before. His hand, long, narrow, muscular, burned even more deeply than hisface, and with a fine black down lying close over it, seemed a hand shehad never seen or been touched by before. But that was hiswedding-ring--her wedding-ring--on the thin third finger. She evenknew that inside it was an inscription--"Marjorie--Francis----" and thedate of their wedding. Hers was like it. He had bought them and hadthem inscribed with everything but the actual date before she had givenin; that had been put in, of course, the week before their marriage. Oh, what _right_ had he to be wearing her wedding-ring?

"Would you like a little time to think it over?" he asked heavily. 

She was irrationally angry at him. What right had he to think sheneeded time to think it over? Why hadn't he the decency to be deceivedby her behavior? Then she stole another look at him, with all thegaiety and youth gone out of his face, and made up her mind that theanger ought to be on his side. But it apparently was not. 

"Oh, _please_ don't mind!" she begged him, abandoning some of herdefenses. "It's true, I do feel a little strange, but I'm sure it willall come straight if--if I wait a little. You see, you were gone solong. "

"Yes. I worried a lot about it on shipboard, " he answered herdirectly. His face did not lighten, but there was a sort of relief inhis tone, as if actually knowing the truth was better than being fencedwith. "I thought to myself--'I hurried her into it so. I wonder ifshe really will care when I come back. ' It was such a long time. Butthen your letters were so sweet and loving, and I cared such a lot----"

His voice broke. He had been talking on a carefully emotionless deadlevel, but now he suddenly stopped as if he had come to the end of hiscontrol. But he was only silent a moment, and went on:

"I cared so much that I thought you must. That's a queer thing, isn'tit? You've known all your life that other people think if they careenough the other person will care, and you know they're idiots. Andthen your time comes, and you go and are the same old idiotyourself. . . . Queer. Well, I'm sorry, Marjorie. Shall I go now?We can think about what we'd better do next time we talk it over. "

"Oh, please, please!" begged Marjorie. "Oh, Francis, I feel like adog--a miserable, little coward-dog. And--and I don't know why you'remaking all this up. I--I haven't said anything like what----"

He put his arm around her, not in the least as if he were her lover. It only felt protecting, not like a man's touch. 

"I would be glad to think you cared for me. But I am almost sure youdon't. Everything you have said, and every one of your actions sincewe came in, have seemed to me as if you didn't. It isn't your fault, poor little thing. It's mine for hurrying you into it. . . . Marjorie, Marjorie--_do_ you?"

There was an intense entreaty in his tone. But she knew that only thetruth would do. 

"No, " she said, dropping her head. 

"I thought not, " he said, rising stiffly and crossing to the door. "Well, I'll go now. I'll come back some time to-morrow, whenever it'smost convenient for you, and we'll discuss details. "

She ran after him. She did feel very guilty. 

"Oh, Francis--Francis! Please don't go! I'm sure I'll feel the way Ishould when I've tried a little longer!"

He stopped for a moment, but only to write something down on a piece ofpaper. 

"There's my telephone number, " he said. "No, Marjorie, I can't stayany longer. This has been pretty bad. I've got to go off and curl upa minute, I think, if you don't mind. . . . Oh, dearest, don't you seethat I _can't_ stay? I'll have myself straightened out by to-morrow, but----"

He had been acting very reasonably up to now. But now he flung himselfout the door like a tornado. It echoed behind him. Marjorie did nottry to keep him. She sat still for a minute longer, shivering. Thenshe began to cry. She certainly did not want him for her husband, butequally she did not want him to go off and leave her. So she went overto the davenport again, where she could cry better, and did wonders inthat line, in a steady, low-spirited way, till Lucille came breezily in. 

Lucille Strong was a plump, exuberant person with corn-colored hair andbright blue eyes and the most affectionate disposition in the world. She also had a quick, fly-away temper, and more emotions thanprinciples. But her sense of humor was so complete, and her sunninessso steady that nobody demanded great self-sacrifice from her. Whowouldn't give anybody the biggest piece of cake and the best chair andthe most presents, for the sake of having a Little Sunshine in thehome? At least, that was the way Billy Strong had looked at it. Hehad been perfectly willing to put off his marriage until Lucilledecreed that there was money enough for her to have her little luxuriesafter marriage, in order to eventually possess Lucille. People alwaysand automatically gave her the lion's share of all material things, andshe accepted them quite as automatically. She was a very pleasanthousemate, and if she coaxed a little, invisibly, in order to acquirethe silk stockings and many birthday presents and theater tickets whichdrifted to her, why, as she said amiably, people value you more whenthey do things for you than when you do things for them. 

"Why, you poor _lamb_!" she said with sincere sympathy, pouncing on thedesolate and very limp Marjorie. "What's the matter? Did Francis haveto go away from you? Look here, honey, you can have my----"

What Lucille was about to offer was known only to herself, because shenever got any farther. Marjorie sat up, her blue eyes dark-circledwith tears, and perhaps with the strain she had been undergoing. 

"Yes, " she said in a subdued voice. "He--he had to go. He'll be backto-morrow. "

Lucille pounced again, and kissed Marjorie rapturously, flushed withromance. 

"Oh, isn't it wonderful to have him back! And Billy may be back anyminute, too! Marge, what on earth shall we do about the apartment? Itisn't big enough for three; and I can't keep it on alone. And thewretched thing's leased for six months longer. You know we thoughtthey'd be coming back together. But you and Francis can take itover----"

"I--I don't think we need to worry about that, " said Marjorie, "for awhile longer. I've made up my mind to go on working. I'd be restlesswithout my work. Filing's really _very_ exciting when you'reaccustomed to it----"

Lucille released her housemate and leaned back on the davenport, thebetter to laugh. As she did so she flung off her coat and dropped iton the floor, in the blessed hope that Marjorie would pick it up, whichusually happened. But Marjorie did not. 

"Filing, " Lucille said through her laughter, "is undoubtedly the moststimulating amusement known to the mind of man. I wonder they pay youfor doing it--they ought to offer it as a reward! Oh, Marge, you'llkill me! Now, you might as well be honest, my child. You know youalways tell me things eventually--why not now? What are your plans, and did Francis bring any souvenirs? I told him to be sure to bringback some of that French perfume that you wouldn't let him get youbecause it was too expensive for his income. I wonder he everrespected you again after that, incidentally. Did he?"

"Did he respect me? I don't know, I'm sure, " said Marjoriedispiritedly. She knew that she would tell Lucille all about it in twomore minutes, and she did not want to. 

"No, darling! Did he bring the perfume?"

"I don't know, " said Marjorie. "Lucille, you haven't had your bathyet. "

"Did you light the hot water for me?"

"No, I forgot, " said Marjorie. 

"All right, I'll light it, " said Lucille amiably. She was deflected bythis, and trotted out into the tiny kitchen to light the gas under thehot water heater. She came back in an exquisite blue crêpe negligee, and curled herself back of Marjorie on the davenport while she waitedfor the water to heat, and for Marjorie to tell her about it all. 

"I wish my hair curled naturally, " she said idly, slipping her fingersup the back of Marjorie's neck, where little fly-away rings alwayscurled. 

"I wish it did, " said Marjorie with absent impoliteness. 

Lucille laughed again. 

"Come back, dear! Remember, I haven't any happy reunion to weep overyet, and be sympathetic. And I have an engagement for dinner, and howwill I ever keep it if you don't tell me everything Francis said? Whendid he see Billy last?"

"He didn't say. "

"What _did_ he say?"

"He said, " said Marjorie, turning around with blazing eyes and pouringforth her words like a fountain, "that he'd wondered if I really lovedhim, and now he was sure I didn't. And that he'd come back some timeto-morrow and discuss details. And he gave me his telephone number, and said he couldn't stay any longer, and it was pretty bad, and he hadto curl up----"

"Marjorie! Marjorie! Stop! This is a bad dream you've had, orsomething out of _Alice in Wonderland_! Francis never said he had tocurl up. Curl up _what_?"

"Curl up himself, I suppose, " said Marjorie with something very like asob. "I was perfectly rational and it made me feel dreadful to hearhim say it, and I knew just what he meant. Curl up like a dog whenit's hurt. Curl _up_!"

"_Don't_! I _am_!" said Lucille. "If you issue any more orders inthat tone I'll look like a caterpillar. Now, what really did happen, Marjorie?" she ended in a gentler tone and more seriously. 

She pulled Marjorie's head over on to her own plump shoulder, and putan arm round her. 

"It was all my fault. I don't love him any more. I don't want to bemarried to him. I didn't mean to show it, I meant to be very goodabout it, but he knows so much more than he did when he went away. Heknew it directly. And now he's dreadfully hurt. "

"You poor little darling! What a horrid time you've been having allthis time everybody's been thinking you were looking forward to hiscoming home. Why, you must have nearly gone crazy!"

"It's worse for him, " said Marjorie in a subdued voice, nestling downon Lucille's shoulder. 

"Oh, I don't know, " said Lucille comfortably. "Men can generally takecare of themselves. . . . But are you sure you don't love him theleast little bit?"

"I'm afraid of him. He's like somebody strange. . . . It's so longago. "

"So long ago an' so far away, le's hope it ain' true!" quoted Lucilleamiably. "Well, darling, if you don't want to marry him you needn't--Imean, if you don't want to stay married to him you needn't. I'm suresomething can be done. Francis is perfectly sure to do anything youlike, he adores you so. "

But this didn't seem to give comfort, either. And as the boiler wasmoaning with excess of heat, Lucille dashed for the bathtub. Shetalked to Marjorie through the flimsy door as she splashed, to theeffect that Marjorie had much better let her call up another man and goout on a nice little foursome, instead of staying at home. But thereMarjorie was firm. She would have preferred anything to her ownsociety, but she felt as if any sort of a party would have been likebreaking through first mourning. 

So she saw Lucille, an immaculate vision of satins and picture hats, gooff gaily with her cavalier, and remained herself all alone in thelittle room, lying on the sofa, going over everything that had happenedand ending it differently. She was very tired, and felt guiltier andguiltier as time went on. Finally she rose and went to the telephoneand called the number Francis had left. 

The voice that answered her was very curt and very quiet. 

"Yes. . . . This is Captain Ellison. Yes, Marjorie? What is it?"

It seemed harder than ever to say what she had to say in the face ofthat distant, unemotional voice. But Marjorie had come to a resolve, and went steadily on. 

"I called up to say, Francis, that I am ready to go with you anywhereyou want to, at any time. I will try to be a good wife to you. "

She clung to the telephone, her heart beating like a triphammer therein the dark, waiting for his answer. It seemed a long time in coming. When it did, it was furious. 

"I don't want you to go with me anywhere, at any time. I don't want awife who has to try to be a good wife to me. "

He hung up with an effect of flinging the receiver in her face. 

Marjorie almost ran back to the davenport--she was beginning to feel asif the davenport was the nearest she had to a mother--and flung herselfon it in a storm of angry tears. He was unjust. He was violent. Shedidn't want a man like that--what on earth had she humiliated herselfthat way for, anyway? What was the use of trying to be honorable andgood and fair and doing things for men, when they treated you likethat? Francis had proposed and proposed and proposed--she hadn't beenso awfully keen on marrying him. . . . It had just seemed like thesort of thing it would be thrilling to do. Well, thank goodness he didfeel that way. She was better off without people like that, anyhow. She would go back home to Westchester, and live a patient, meek, virtuous life under Cousin Anna Stevenson's thumb, as she had beforeshe got the position at the office or got married. She certainlycouldn't go back to the office and explain it all to them. At least, she wouldn't. It would be better, even if Cousin Anna did treateverybody as if they were ten and very foolish. . . . And she hadrefused the offer of a nice foursome and one of Lucille's cheerfulfriends, to stay home and be treated this way!

She rose and went to the telephone again, with blazing cheeks. 

She called up, on the chance, Logan's number; and amazingly got him. And she invited him on the spot to come over the next evening and havesomething in a chafing-dish with Lucille and herself. Lucille, sheknew, had no engagement for that evening, and could produce men, always, out of thin air. Marjorie chose Logan because Francis had saidhe didn't like him. She had been a little too much afraid, beforethat, of Logan's literariness to dare call him up. But that night shewould have dared the Grand Cham of Tartary, if that dignitary had had aphone number and been an annoyance to Francis Ellison. 

Logan, to her surprise, accepted eagerly, and even forgot to bemannered. He did, it must be said, keep her at the telephone, whichwas a stand-up one, for an hour, while he talked brilliantly about theItalian renaissance in its ultimate influence on the arts and craftsmovement of the present day. To listen to Logan was a liberaleducation at any moment, if a trifle too much like attending a lecture. But at least he didn't expect much answering. 

She went to the office, next day, in more or less of a dream. She wasvery quiet, and worked very hard. Nobody said much to her; she tookcare not to let them. When stray congratulations came her way, as theywere bound to, and when old Mr. Morrissey, the vice-head, said, "Isuppose we can't hope to keep you long now, " and beamed, she answeredwithout any heartbeatings or difficulty. She was quite sure she wouldnever feel gay again; she had had so much happen to her. But it wasrather pleasant not to be able to have any feelings, if a littlemonotonous. The only thing at all on her mind was the question as tohow much cheese a party of four needed for a rarebit, and whether Loganwould or could eat rarebits at night. And even that was to a certaindegree a matter of indifference. 

She finally decided that scallops à la King might be more what he wouldeat. She bought them on her way home, together with all the rest ofthe things she needed. Lucille had produced a fourth person with herusual lack of effort, and it promised to be--if anything in life couldhave been anything but flavorless--rather a good party. 

In fact, it was. It was a dear little apartment that the girls shared, with a living-room chosen especially for having nice times in. It waslighted by tall candles, and had a gas grate that was almost human. There was a grand piano which took up more than its share of room, there was the davenport aforesaid, there were companionable chairs andtaborets acquired by Lucille and kept by Marjorie in the exact placeswhere they looked best; there were soft draperies, also hemmed and putup by Marjorie. The first thing visitors always said about it was thatit made them feel comfortable and at home. They generally attributedthe homelikeness to Lucille, who was dangerously near looking matronly, rather than to Marjorie, who would be more like a firefly than a matroneven when she became a grandmother. 

Marjorie, with cooking to do, tied up in a long orange colored apron, almost forgot things. She loved to make things to eat. Lucille, meanwhile, sat on the piano-stool and played snatches of "The Long, Long Trail, " and the men, Lucille's negligible one and Marjorie's Mr. Logan, made themselves very useful in the way of getting plates andarranging piles of crackers. The small black kitten which had been apresent to Lucille from the janitor, who therefore was a mother to itwhile the girls were out, sat expectantly on the edge of all the placeswhere he shouldn't be, purring loudly and having to be put down atfive-minute intervals. 

"I suppose this is a sort of celebration of your having your husbandback, " said the Lucille man presently to Marjorie. He had been toldso, indeed, by Lucille, who was under that impression herself, Loganlooked faintly surprised. He, to be frank, had forgotten all aboutMarjorie's having a husband who had to be celebrated. 

Marjorie nearly spilled the scallops she was serving at that moment, and the kitten, losing its self-control entirely, climbed on the tablewith a cry of entreaty for the excellent fish-smelling dishful ofthings to eat. It was lucky for Marjorie that he did, because whileshe was struggling with him Lucille answered innocently for her. 

"Yes, more or less. But he's late. Where's your perfectly goodhusband, Marge?"

"Late, I'm afraid, " Marjorie answered, smiling, and wondering atherself for being able to smile. "We aren't to wait for him. "

"Sensible child, " Lucille answered. "I'm certainly very hungry. "

She drew her chair up to the low table the men had pushed into thecenter of the room, sent one of them to open the window, rather thanturn out the cheerful light of the gas grate, and the real business ofthe party began. 

It was going on very prosperously, that meal; even Mr. Logan washeroically eating the same things the rest did, and not taking up morethan his fair share of the conversation, when there was a quick step onthe stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just asshe had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, andwhen he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over andlet him in. 

He came in exactly as if he belonged there; but after one quick glanceat the visitors he drew Marjorie aside into the little inner room. 

"Marjorie, I've come to say I was unkind and unfair over the telephone. I've made up my mind that you are fonder of me than you know. I thinkit will be all right--it was foolish of me to be too proud to take youunless you were absolutely willing. Let me take back what I said, andforgive me. I know it will be all right--Marjorie!"

She gave him a furious push away from her. Her eyes blazed. 

"It never will be all right! It isn't going to have a chance to be!"she told him, as angry as he had been when she called him up. "You hadyour chance and you wouldn't take it. I don't want to be your wife, and I never will be. That's all there is to say. "

She took a step in the direction of the outer room. He put out a handto detain her. 

"Marjorie! Marjorie! Don't!"

"I'm going out there, and going to keep on having the nice time I hadbefore you came. If you try to do anything I'll probably make a scene. "

"You're going to give me one more chance, " he said. "That's settled. "

She looked at him defiantly. 

"Try to make me, " was all she said, wrenching her wrist out of his hand. 

"I will, " said Francis grimly. 

She smiled at him brilliantly as he followed her into the room wherethe others were. 

"I'm afraid there isn't any way, " she said sweetly. 

Lucille, who had not seen Francis before, flew at him now with awelcome which was affectionate enough to end effectually any furtherardors or defiances. 

"And you're in time for your own party after all, " she ended, smilingsunnily at him and pushing him into a chair. She gave him a plate ofscallops and a fork, and the party went on as it had before. OnlyMarjorie eyed him with nervous surprise. "What will he do next?" shewondered. 

CHAPTER III

What he did was to eat his scallops à la King with appetite, fraternizecheerfully with Lucille's friend, whose name was Tommy Burke, and whowas an old acquaintance of his, speak to Marjorie occasionally in themost natural way in the world, and altogether behave entirely as if itreally was his party, and he was very glad that there was a party. Itis to be said that he ignored Logan rather more than politenessdemanded. But Logan was so used to being petted that he never knew it. Marjorie did, and lavished more attention on him defiantly to try tomake up for it. She thought that the evening never would end. 

After the food was finished it was to be expected that Lucille would goto the piano, and play some more, and that the men would sit aboutsmoking on the davenport and the taborets, and that every one would bepleasantly quiet. But Lucille did not. Instead, she and Francisretired to the back room, leaving Marjorie and the others to amuse eachother, and talk for what seemed to Marjorie's strained nerves aneternity of time. It was Francis who had called Lucille, moreover, andnot Lucille who had summoned Francis, as could have been expected. 

Finally the other men rose to go. Francis came out of the inner roomand went with them. Before he went he stopped to say to Marjorie:

"I told you I wanted to talk things over with you. I'll be back in ahalf-hour. You seem to be so popular that the only way to see youalone is to get you in a motor-car, so if you aren't too tired to drivearound with me to-night, to a place where I have to go, I'll bring youhome safely. . . . I didn't mean to speak so sharply to you, Marjorie, over the telephone. Please forgive me. "

"Certainly, " said Marjorie coldly and tremulously. It could be seenthat she did not forgive him in the least. 

He went downstairs with the others, laughing with Burke, who had adozen army reminiscences to exchange with him, and bidding as small agood-by as decency permitted to Logan. Marjorie heard him dash upagain, and then run down, as if he had left something outside the doorand forgotten it. Lucille came over to her and began to fuss at herabout changing her frock for a heavier one, and taking enough wraps. 

"Why, it's only a short drive, " Marjorie expostulated. "And I'm notsure that I want to go, anyway. I don't think there's anything more tobe said than we have said. "

Francis, with that disconcerting swiftness which he possessed, had comeback as she spoke. 

He came close to her, and spoke softly. 

"You used to like the boy you married, Marjorie. For his sake won'tyou do this one thing? Give me a hearing--one more hearing. "

Lucille had come back again with a big loose coat, and she was wrappingit round her friend with a finality that meant more struggle than poortired Marjorie was capable of making. After all, another half-hour ofdiscussion would not matter. The end would be the same. She went downwith them to the big car that stood outside, and even managed to saysomething flippant about its looking like a traveling house, it was sobig. Francis established her in the front seat, by him, tucked a rugaround her, for the night was sharp for May, and drove to Fifth Avenue, then uptown. 

She waited, wearily and immovable, for him to argue with her further, but he seemed in no hurry to commence. They merely drove on and on, and Marjorie was content not to talk. It was a clear, beautiful night, too late for much traffic, so they went swiftly. The ride waspleasant. All that she had been through had tired her so that shefound the silence and motion very pleasant and soothing. 

Finally he turned to her, and she braced herself for whatever he mightwant to say. 

"Would you mind if we drove across the river for a little while?" heasked. 

"Why--no, " she said idly. "Out in the country, you mean?"

He assented, and they drove on, but not to the ferry. They turned, andwent up Broadway, far, far again. 

"Where are we?" asked Marjorie finally. "Isn't it time you turnedaround and took me back? And didn't you have something you wanted tosay to me?"

"Yes----" he said absently. "No, we have all the time in the world. There's no scandal possible in being out motoring with your husband, even if you shouldn't get home till daylight. "

"But where _are_ we?" demanded Marjorie again. 

"The Albany Post Road, " said Francis. This meant very little toMarjorie, but she waited another ten minutes before she asked again. 

"Just the same post road as before, " said Francis preoccupiedly, letting the machine out till they were going at some unbelievable speedan hour. "The Albany. Not the Boston. "

"Well, it doesn't matter to me _what_ post road, " remonstratedMarjorie, beginning rather against her will to laugh a little, as shehad been used to do with Francis. "I want to go home. "

"You are, " said he. 

"Oh, is this one of those roads that turns around and swallows its owntail?" she demanded, "and brings you back where you started?"

"Just where you started, " he assented, still in the same preoccupiedvoice. 

She accepted this quietly for the moment. 

"Francis, " she said presently, "I mean it. I want to go home. "

"You are going home, " said Francis. "But not just yet. "

It seemed undignified to row further. She was so tired--so very tired!

Francis did not speak again, and after a little while she must havedropped off to sleep; for when she came to herself again the road was adifferent one. They were traveling along between rows of pines, andthe road stretched ahead of them, empty and country-looking. Sheturned and asked sleepily, "What time is it, Francis, please?"

He bent a little as he shot his wrist-watch forward enough to look atthe phosphorescent dial. 

"Twenty minutes past three, " he said as if it was the most commonplacehour in the world to be driving through a country road. 

For a moment she did not take it in. Then she threw dignity to thewinds. She was rested enough to have some fight in her again. 

"I'm going home! I'm going home if I have to walk!" she said wildly. She started to spring up in the car, with some half-formed intention offorcing him to stop by jumping out. 

"Now, Marjorie, don't act like a movie-heroine, " he saidcommonplacely--and infuriatingly. He also took one hand off thesteering-wheel and put it around her wrist. "You can't go back to NewYork unless I take you. We're fifty miles up New York State, and thereisn't a town near at all. "

Marjorie sat still and looked at him. The car went on. 

"I don't understand, " she said. "You can't be going to abduct me, Francis?"

Francis, set as his face was, smiled a little at this. 

"That isn't the word, because you don't abduct your lawful wife. But Ido want you to try me out before you discard me entirely. Andapparently this is the only way to get you to do it. "

"What are you going to do?" she asked. 

"Want the cards on the table?"

She nodded. 

"All the cards--now? Or would you rather take things as they come?"

All this time the car was going ahead full speed in the moonlight. 

"Everything--now!" she said tensely. 

He never looked at her as he talked. His eyes were on the road ahead. 

"Just now--as soon as we get to a spot where it seems likely to becomfortable, we're going to unship a couple of pup-tents from the backof the car, and sleep out here. I have all your things in the back ofthe car. If you'd rather, you can sleep in the car; you're little andI think you could be comfortable on the back seat. "

She interrupted him with a cry of injury. 

"My things? Where did you get them?"

"Lucille packed them. She worked like a demon to get everything ready. She was thrilled. "

"Thrilled!" said Marjorie resentfully. "I'm so sick of people beingthrilled I don't know what to do. _I'm_ not thrilled. . . . I mighthave known it. It's just the sort of thing Lucille would be crazy overdoing. I suppose she feels as if she were in the middle of amelodrama. "

"I'm sorry, Marjorie, but there's something about you that always makespeople feel romantic. . . . " His voice softened. "I remember thefirst time I saw you, coming into that restaurant a little behindLucille, it made me feel as if the fairy-stories I'd stopped believingin had come true all over again. You were so little and so graceful, and you looked as if you believed in so many wonderful things----"

"Stop!" said Marjorie desperately. "It isn't fair to talk that way tome. I won't have it. If you feel that way you ought to take me backhome. "

"On the contrary, just the reverse, " quoted Francis, who seemed to begetting cooler as Marjorie grew more excited. "You said you'd listen. Be a sport, and do listen. "

"Very well, " said Marjorie sulkily. She _was_ a sport by nature, andshe was curious. 

"I've taken a job in Canada--reforesting of burned-over areas. I hadto go to-night at the latest. It seemed to me that we hadn't either ofus given this thing a fair try-out. I hadn't a chance with you unlessI took this one. My idea is for you to give me a trial, under anyconditions you like that include our staying in the same house a coupleof months. I'm crazy over you. I want to stay married to you theworst way. You're all frightened of me, and marriage, and everything, now. But it's just possible that you may be making a mistake, notseeing it through. It's just possible that I may be making a mistake, thinking that you and I would be happy. "

Marjorie gave a little tense jerk of outraged pride at this rathertactless speech. It sounded too much as if Francis might possibly tireof _her_--which it wasn't his place to do. 

"And so, " Francis went on doggedly, "my proposition is that you go upto Canada with me. There's a fairly decent house that goes with thejob. There won't be too much of my society. You need a rest anyhow. I won't hurry you, or do anything unfair. Only let us try it out, andsee if we wouldn't like being married, exactly as if we'd had a chanceto be engaged before. "

"And if we don't?" inquired Marjorie. 

"And if we don't, I'll give you the best divorce procurable this sideof the water. "

"You sound as if it was a Christmas present, " said Marjorie. 

She thought she was temporizing, but Francis accepted it as willingnessto do as he suggested. 

"Then you will?" he asked. 

"But--it's such an awful step to take!"

Francis leaned back--she could feel him do it, in the dark--and beganto argue as coolly as if it were not three o'clock in the morning, onan unfrequented road. 

"The most of the step is taken. You haven't anything to do but just goon as you are--no packing or walking or letter-writing or anything ofthe sort. Simply stay here in the car with me and end at the place inCanada, live there and let me be around more or less. If there'sanything you want at home that Lucille has forgotten----"

"Knowing Lucille, there probably is, " said Marjorie. 

"----we'll write her and get it. . . . Well?"

Marjorie took a long breath, tried to be very wide-awake and firm, andfell silent, thinking. 

She was committed, for one thing. People would think it was all rightand natural if she went on with Francis, and be shocked and upset andeverything else if she didn't. Cousin Anna Stevenson would write herlong letters about her Christian duty, and the office would beuncomfortable. And Lucille--well, Lucille was a blessed comfort. Shedidn't mind what you did so long as it didn't put her out personally. She at least--but Lucille had packed the bag! And you couldn't go andfling yourself on the neck of as perfidious a person as _that_. 

And--it would be an adventure. Francis was nice, or at least sheremembered it so; a delightful companion. He wasn't rushing her. Allhe wanted was a chance to be around and court her, as far as she coulddiscover. True, he was appallingly strange, but--it seemed acompromise. And she had always liked the idea of Canada. As foreventually staying with Francis, that seemed very far off. It did notseem like a thing she could ever do. Being friends with him she mightcompass. Of course, you couldn't say that it was a fair deal toFrancis, but he was bringing it on himself, and really, he deserved thepunishment. For of course, Marjorie's vain little mind saidirrepressibly to itself, he would be fonder of her at the end of thetry-out than at the beginning. . . . And then a swift wave of anger athim came over her, and she decided on the crest of it. She would nevergive in to Francis's courtship. He wasn't the sort of man she liked. He wasn't congenial. She had grown beyond him. But he deserved whathe was going to get. . . . And she spoke. 

"It isn't fair to you, Francis, because it isn't going to end the wayyou hope. But I'll go to Canada with you . . . "

For a moment she was very sorry she had said it, because Francis forgothimself and caught her in his arms tight, and kissed her hard. 

"If you do that sort of thing I _won't_!" she said. "That wasn't inthe bargain. "

"I know it wasn't, " said Francis contritely. "Only you were such agood little sport to promise. I won't do it again unless you say Imay. Honestly, Marjorie. Not even before people. "

This sounded rather topsy-turvy, but after awhile it came to Marjoriewhat he meant--just about the time she climbed out of the car, sat onits step, and watched Francis competently unfurling and setting up twosmall and seemingly inadequate tents and flooring them with balsamboughs. He meant that there would have to be at least a semblance offriendliness on account of the people they lived among. She felt morefrightened than ever. 

Francis came up to her as if he had felt the wave of terror that wentover her. 

"Now you aren't to worry. I'm going to keep my word. You're safe withme, Marge. I'm going to take care of you as if I were your brother andyour father and your cousin Anna----"

She broke in with an irrepressible giggle. 

"Oh, please don't go that far! Two male relatives will beplenty. . . . I--I really got all the care from Cousin Anna that Iwanted. "

He looked relieved at her being able to laugh, and bent over the tentsagain in the moonlight. 

"There you are. And here are the blankets. We're near enough to theroad so you won't be frightened, and enough in the bushes so we'll besecluded. Good-night. I'll call you to-morrow, when it's time to goon. I know this part of the country like my hand, and here's somewater in case you're thirsty in the night. Oh, and here are towels. "

This last matter-of-fact touch almost set Marjorie off again inhysterical laughter. Being eloped with by a gentleman who thoughtfullyset towels and water outside her door was really _too_ much. Shepinned the tent together with a hatpin, slipped off some of herclothes--it did not seem enough like going to bed to undressaltogether, and she mistrusted the balsam boughs with blankets overthem that pretended to be a bed in the corner--and flung herself downand laughed and laughed and laughed till she nearly cried. 

She did not quite cry. The boughs proved to have been arranged by amaster hand, and she was very tired and exceedingly sleepy. She pulledhairpins out of her hair in a half-dream, so that they had to be soughtfor painstakingly next morning when she woke. She burrowed into theblankets, and knew nothing of the world till nine next morning. 

"I can't knock on a tent-flap, " said Francis's buoyant voice outsidethen. "But it's time we were on our way, Marjorie. There ought to bea bathrobe in that bundle of Lucille's. Slip it on and I'll show youthe brook. "

She reached for a mirror, which showed that, though tousled, she waspretty, took one of the long breaths that seemed so frequentlynecessary in dealing with Francis, said "in for a penny, in for apound, " and did as she was directed. The bath-robe wasn't a bath-robe, but something rather more civilized, which had been, as a matter offact, part of her trousseau, in that far-off day when trousseaux wereso frequently done, and seemed such fun to buy. She came out of thetent rather timidly. "Good gracious, child, that wasn't what I meant!"exclaimed Francis, seeming appallingly dressed and neat and ready forlife. "It's too cold for that sort of thing. Here!"

He picked up one of the blankets, wrapped it around her, gave her asteer in a direction away from the road, and vanished. 

She went down the path he had pushed her toward, holding the towelstight in one hand and her blanket around her in the other. It wasfresh that morning, though it was warm for May. And Francis seemed tothink that she was going to take a bath in the brook, which even hecould not have had heated. She shivered at the idea as she came uponit. 

It was an alluring brook, in spite of its unheated state. It was veryclear and brown, with a pebbled bottom that you could see into, and asort of natural round pool, where the current was partly dammed, makingit waist-deep. She resolved at first to wash just her face and hands;then she tried an experimental foot, and finished by making a boldplunge straight into the ice-cold middle of it. She shrieked when shewas in, and came very straight out, but by the time she was dry she waswarmer than ever. She ran back to the tent, laughing in sheerexuberance of spirits, and dressed swiftly. The plunge had stimulatedher so that when Francis appeared again she ran toward him, feeling asfriendly as if he weren't married to her at all. 

"It was--awfully cold--but I'm just as hungry as I can be!" she called. "Was there anything to eat in the car, along with the towels?"

Francis seemed unaccountably relieved by her pleasantness. This hadbeen something of a strain on him, after all, though it was the firsttime such a thought had occurred to Marjorie. His thin, dark facelighted up. 

"Everything, including thermos bottles, " he called back. "We won'tstop to build a fire, because we have to hurry; but Lucille----"

"Lucille!" said Marjorie. "Well, I certainly never knew what a wretchthat girl was. "

"Oh, not a wretch. Only romantic, " said Francis, grinning. "I tellyou again, Marjorie, you have a fatal effect on people. Look at me--amatter-of-fact captain of doughboys--and the minute I see that youwon't marry me--stay married to me, I mean--I elope with you in a coachand four!"

"I don't think you ought to laugh about it, " said Marjorie, soberingdown and stopping short in her tracks. 

"Well, I shouldn't, " said Francis penitently. "Only I'm relieved, anda little excited, I suppose. You see, I like your society a lot, andthe idea of having it for maybe three months, on any terms you like, ismaking me so pleased I'm making flippant remarks. I won't any more, ifI remember. "

And he apparently meant it, for he busied himself in exploring the car, which seemed as inexhaustible as the Mother's Bag in the Swiss FamilyRobinson, for the food he had spoken of. There was a large basket, which he produced and set on a stump, and from which he tooksandwiches, thermos flasks, and--last perfidy of Lucille!--a tin box ofshrimps à la King, carefully wrapped, and ready for reheating. He didit in a little ready-heat affair which also emerged from the basket, and which Marjorie knew well. It was her own, in fact. Reheatedshrimps should have killed them both, more especially for breakfast. But they never thought of that till some days later. Marjorie was soovercome by finding her own shrimps facing her, so to speak, thatnothing else occurred to her--except to eat them. They made a verygood breakfast, during which Francis was never flippant once. Theytalked decorously about the natural scenery--fortunately for theconversation there was a great deal of natural scenery in theirvicinity--and somewhat about pup-tents, and a little about how nice theweather was. After that they cleared up the pieces, repackedeverything like magic, and went on their way very amicably. 

CHAPTER IV

"And now that things are more or less settled, wouldn't you like toknow what we are going to do?" inquired Francis. 

"Haven't I anything to do with it?" inquired Marjorie, not crossly, butas one seeking information. 

"Almost everything. But you don't know the road to Canada. I thoughtwe'd take it straight through in the car, but to-night we will be inmore civilized parts--in an hour or so, in fact--and you can getstraightened up a little--not that you look as if you needed to, butafter a night in the open one does feel more or less tossed about, Iimagine. "

Marjorie considered. Ordinarily at this hour she would be walking intothe office. She would be speaking with what politeness one can musterup in the morning to Miss Kaplan, who was quite as exuberant at five asat seven in the evening; she would be hoping desperately that shewasn't late, and that if she was she would escape Mr. Wildhack, whoglared terrifyingly at such young women who didn't get down on scheduletime. Marjorie was not much on schedule time, but she always felt thatthe occasions when she got there too late really ought to be balancedby those when she came too early. Instead of all this, she was racingnorth with the fresh wind blowing against her face, with no duties andno responsibilities, and something that, but for the person who sharedit with her, promised to be rather fun. Just then something came toher. She had an engagement for tea with Bradley Logan. 

Suddenly that engagement seemed exceedingly important, and somethingthat she should on no account have missed. But at least she couldwrite to him and explain. 

"Have you a fountain-pen?" she inquired of Francis, "and can I writesitting here?"

"If you don't mind writing on a leaf from my notebook. It's all Ihave. "

She was privately a little doubtful as to the impression that such anote would make on Mr. Logan, for she remembered one wild tale she hadheard from him about a man who spent his whole life in a secluded roomsomewhere in France, experimenting on himself as to what sort ofperfumes and colors and gestures made him happiest. None of them hadmade him happy at all, to the best of her remembrance; but the idea Mr. Logan left her with was that he was that sort of person himself, andthat the wrong kind of letter-paper could make him suffer acutely. Shewas amused at it, really, but a bit impressed, too. One doesn't wantto be thought the kind of person who does the wrong thing because ofknowing no better. Still, it was that or nothing. 

"Dear Mr. Logan, " she began, more illegibly than she knew because ofthe car's motion, "I am so sorry that I have not been able to tell youin advance that I couldn't take tea with you. But Mr. Ellison hastaken me away rather suddenly. He had to go to Canada to take aposition. We hope we will see you when we get back. "

She did not know till much later that owing to the thank-you-ma'amwhich they reached simultaneously with the word "suddenly" that whenMr. Logan got that note he thought it was "severely, " and that the badpenmanship and generally disgraceful appearance of the loose-leafsheet, the jerky hand, and the rather elderly envelope which was allFrancis could find--it had been living in a pocket with many otherthings for some time--gave him a wrong idea. Mr. Logan, to anticipatea little, by this erroneous means, acquired an idea very near thetruth. He thought that Marjorie Ellison was being kidnapped againsther will, and made it the subject of much meditation. His nervousailment prevented him from dashing after her. 

Marjorie fortunately knew nothing of all this, for she was proud to thecore, and she would rather have died than let any one but Lucille, ofnecessity in on it, know anything but that she was spending the mostdelightful and willing of honeymoons. 

So when they found a little up-state town with a tavern of exceedingage and stiffness, and alighted in search of luncheon, the landlord andlandlady thought just what Marjorie wanted them to think; that all waswell and very recent. 

She sank into one of the enormous walnut chairs, covered withimmaculate and flaring tidies which reminded her of Cousin Anna andstuck into the back of her neck, and viewed the prospect with pleasure. For the moment she almost forgot Francis, and the problem of managingjust the proper distance from him. There was a stuffed fish, glassy-eyed and with cotton showing from parts of him, over thecounter. There were bills of forgotten railroads framed and hung indifferent places. There was a crayon portrait of a graduated row ofchildren from the seventies hung over the fireplace, four of them, onthe order of another picture, framed and hanging in another part of theroom, and called "A Yard of Kittens. " Marjorie wondered with pleasurewhy they hadn't added enough children to bring it up to a yard, andbalanced things properly. The fireplace itself was bricked up, allexcept a small place where a Franklin stove sat, with immortellessticking out of its top as if they aimed at being fuel. Marjorie hadseen immortelles in fireplaces before, but in a Franklin they were newto her. She made up her mind to find out about it before she wasthrough. 

"Why--why, I'm not worrying about being carried off by Francis!" sheremembered suddenly. She had been quite forgetful of him, and ofanything but the funny, old-fashioned place she was in. She lay backfurther in the walnut chair, quite sleepily. 

"Would you like to go upstairs now, ma'am?" the landlord said. Shelooked around for Francis, but he was nowhere to be seen. She pickedup the handkerchief which had slipped from her lap, cast a regretfullook at the yard of kittens, and followed him. 

"Here it is, ma'am, " said the landlord, and set the suitcase he hadbeen carrying down inside the door. She shut the door after her, andmade for the mirror. Then she said "Oh!" in a surprised voice, becauseFrancis was standing before it, brushing his hair much harder than suchstraight black hair needed to be brushed. 

He seemed as much surprised as she. 

"Good heavens, I beg your pardon, Marjorie!" he said. "This isn't yourroom. Yours is the next one. "

"I beg _your_ pardon, then, " said Marjorie, with a certain iciness. 

"You can have this one if you like it better. They're next door toeach other. You know"--Francis colored--"we have to seem more or lessfriendly. Really I didn't know----"

He was moving away into the other room as he spoke, having laid downhis brush on her bureau as if he had no business with it at all. 

"This isn't my brush, " she said, standing at the connecting door andholding it out at arm's length. 

"No, " said Francis. "I didn't know I'd left it. Thank you. "

He took it from her, and went into his own room. She pushed the doorto between them, and went slowly back and sat down on the bed. A quitenew idea had just come to her. 

Francis wasn't a relentless Juggernaut, or a tyrant, or a cave-man, oranything like that really. That is, he probably did have moments ofbeing all of them. But besides that--it was a totally new idea--he wasa human being like herself. Sometimes things embarrassed him;sometimes they were hard for him; he didn't always know what to do next. 

She had never had any brothers, and not very much to do with men untilshe got old enough for them to make love to her. The result was thatit had never occurred to her particularly that men were people. Theywere just--men. That is, they were people you had nothing in commonwith except the fact that you did what they said if they were fathers, or married them when the time came, if they weren't. But she hadactually felt sorry for Francis; not sorry, in a vague, rather pityingway because she didn't love him--but sorry for him as if he had beenLucille, when he was so embarrassed that he walked off forgetting hisown brush. She smiled a little at the remembrance. She really beganto feel that he was a friend. 

So when he tapped at her outside door presently and told her thatluncheon was ready, and that they had better go down and eat it, instead of the severity for which Francis had braced himself, shesmiled at him in a very friendly fashion, and they went down together, admiring the wallpaper intensely on their way, for it consisted of fatscarlet birds sitting on concentric circles, and except for its age wasalmost exactly like some that Lucille and Marjorie hadn't boughtbecause it was two dollars a yard. 

Luncheon proved to be dinner, but they were none the less glad of itfor that. And instead of freezing every time the landlord wastactlessly emotional, Marjorie found that she could be amused at it, and that her being amused helped Francis to be amused. 

She always looked back tenderly to that yard of kittens, and to thoseother many yards of impossible and scarlet birds. They gave her thefirst chance at carrying through her wild flight with Francis decentlyand without too much discomfort. 

The rest of the trip to Canada was easier and easier. Once admittingthat Francis and she were friends--and you can't spend three daystraveling with anybody without being a friend or an enemy--she had anice enough time. She kept sternly out of her mind the recollectionthat he was in love with her. When she thought of that she couldn'tlike him very much. But then she didn't have to think of it. 

"Here we are, " said Francis superfluously as they stopped at the doorof a big house that was neither a log cabin nor a regular house. 

Marjorie gave a sigh of contentment. 

"I admit I'm glad to get here, " she said. 

She slipped out of the car in the sunset, and stood drooping a minute, waiting for her bag to be lifted down. She was beginning to feeltired. She was lonely, too. She missed everything acutely and all atonce--New York, the little apartment, Lucille, being free fromFrancis--even the black kitten seemed to her something that she couldnot live one moment longer without. She turned and looked at Francis, trim and alert as ever, just steering the car around the side of thehouse, and found herself hating him for the moment. He was so at homehere. And she hadn't even carfare to run away if she wanted to!

"Well, now, you poor lamb!" said somebody's rich, motherly voice with abroad Irish brogue. "You're tired enough to die, and no wonder. Comealong with me, darlin'. "

She looked up with a feeling of comfort into the face of ablack-haired, middle-aged Irishwoman, ample and beaming. 

"I'm Mrs. O'Mara, an' I know yer husband well. I kep' house for himan' the other young gintlemen when they were workin' up here before thefightin' began. So he got me to come an' stay wid the two of ye, mean' Peggy. An' I don't deny I'm glad to see ye, for there does be aghost in this house!"

The ending was so unexpected and matter-of-fact that Marjorie forgot tofeel lost and estranged, and even managed to laugh. Even a ghostsounded rather pleasant and friendly, and it was good to see a woman'sface. Who or what Peggy might be she did not know or care. Mrs. O'Mara picked up the suitcase with one strong arm, and, putting theother round Marjorie in a motherly way, half led her into the house. 

"Ye'll excuse me familiarity, but it's plain to see ye're dead, Miss--ma'am, I mean. Come yer ways in to the fire. "

Marjorie had been feeling that life would be too hard to bear if shehad to climb any stairs now; so it was very gladly that she let Mrs. O'Mara establish her in a rude chaise-longue sort of thing, facing ahuge fire in a roughly built fireplace. The housekeeper bent over her, loosening knots and taking off wraps in a very comforting way. Thenshe surrounded her with pillows--not too many, or too much in herway--and slipped from the room to return in a moment with tea. 

Marjorie drank it eagerly, and was revived by it enough to look aroundand see the place where she was to dwell. It looked very attractive, though it was not in the least like anything she had ever seen. 

Where she lay she stared straight into a fire of great logs thatcrackled and burned comfortingly. The mantel over it was roughly madeof wood, and its only adornment was a pipe at one side, standing up onits end in some mysterious manner, and a pile of Government reports atthe other. The walls were plastered and left so. Here and there weretacked photographs and snapshots, and along one wall--she had to screwher neck to see it--some one had fastened up countless sheets from aSunday supplement--war photographs entirely. She wondered who had doneit, because what she had seen of returned soldiers had shown her thatthe last thing they wanted to see or hear about was the war. 

There were couches around the walls, the other chairs were loungingchairs also. There was fishing-tackle in profusion, and a batteredphonograph on a table. It looked as if men had made themselvescomfortable there, without thinking much about looks. The only thingagainst this was one small frilled chair. It was a most absurd chair, rustic to begin with, with a pink cushion covered with white net andruffled, and pink ribbons anchoring another pink and net cushion at itsback. Mrs. O'Mara, hovering hospitably, saw Marjorie eying it, andbeamed proudly. 

"That's Peggy's chair, " she said. "Peggy's me little daughter. "

"Oh, that's nice, " said Marjorie. "How old is she?"

"Just a young thing, " said Mrs. O'Mara. "She'll be in in a minute. "

Marjorie leaned back again, her tea consumed, and rested. She was notparticularly interested in Peggy, because she was not very used tochildren. She liked special ones sometimes, but as a rule she did notquite know what to do with them. After a few sentences exchanged, andan embarrassed embrace in which the children stiffened themselves, children and Marjorie were apt to melt apart. She hoped Peggy wouldn'tbe the kind that climbed on you and kicked you. 

A wild clattering of feet aroused her from these half-drowsymeditations. 

"Here's Francis, mother! Here's Francis!" called a joyous young voice, and Marjorie turned to see Francis, his eyes sparkling and his wholeface lighted up, dashing into the room with an arm around one of themost beautiful girls she had ever seen, a tall, vivid creature whomight have been any age from seventeen to twenty, and who brought intothe room an atmosphere of excitement and gaiety like a wind. 

"And here's Peggy!" said Francis gaily, pausing in his dash only whenhe reached Marjorie's side. "She's all grown up since I went away, andisn't she the dear of the world?"

"Oh, but so's your wife, Francis!" said Peggy naïvely, slipping her armfrom around his shoulder and dropping on her knees beside Marjorie. "You don't mind if I kiss you, do you, please? And must I call herMrs. Ellison, Francis?"

"Peggy, child, where's your manners?" said her mother from thebackground reprovingly, but with an obvious note of pride in her voice. 

"Where they always were, " said Peggy boldly, laughing, and stayingwhere she was. 

She was tall and full-formed, with thick black hair like her mother's, not fluffy and waving like Marjorie's, but curling tight in ringswherever it had the chance. Her eyes were black and her cheeks andlips a deep permanent red. She looked the picture of health andstrength, and Marjorie felt like a toy beside her--fragile to thebreaking-point. She seemed much better educated than her mother, andevidently on a footing of perfect equality and affection with Francis. 

Marjorie was drawn to her, for the girl had vitality and charm; but shefound herself wondering why Francis had never told her about thisPeggy, and why he had never thought of marrying her. 

"You wouldn't think this young wretch was only sixteen, would you?"said Francis, answering her silent question. "Look at her--longdresses and hair done up, and beaux, I hear, in all directions!"

Of course. If Peggy had been scarcely past fourteen when Francis sawher last, he couldn't have considered marrying her. Marjorie tried tothink that she wished he had, but found that she did not like to ceaseowning anything that she had ever possessed, even such a belonging asFrancis Ellison. 

"That's very nice, " she said inadequately, smiling at Peggy in asfriendly a manner as so tired a person could manage. "I'm glad I shallhave Peggy to be friends with while I'm up here. "

"Oh, me dear, ye'll be up here forever an' the day after, be the looksof the job Mr. Francis has on his hands, " said Mrs. O'Mara. 

"No, I won't, " she began to say hurriedly, and then stopped herself. She had no right to tell any one about her bargain with Francis. Shedidn't want to, anyway. 

"The poor child's tired, " said Mrs. O'Mara, whom, in spite of herrelation to Peggy, Marjorie was beginning to regard as a guardianangel. "Come upstairs to yer room, me dear. "

Marjorie rose, with Francis and Peggy hovering about her, carryingwraps and hats and suitcases; and Mrs. O'Mara led the way to a room onthe floor above, reached by a stair suspiciously like a ladder. 

"Here ye'll be comfortable, " said Mrs. O'Mara, "and rest a little tillwe have supper. Peggy will get you anything you want. "

But Marjorie declined Peggy. All she wanted was to rest a littlelonger. 

She flung herself on the softly mattressed cot in one corner of theroom; and nearly went to sleep. 

She was awakened--it must have been quite sleep--by Francis, on thethreshold. His eyes were blazing, and he was evidently angry at her tothe last degree--angrier even than he had been that time in the citywhen he nearly threw the telephone at her. 

"Is this the sort of person you are?" he demanded furiously. "Look atthis telegram!"

Marjorie, frightened, rose from the couch with her heart beating like atriphammer. 

"Let me see, " she asked. 

He handed the telegram to her with an effect of wanting to shake her. 

"Am coming up to arrange with you about Mrs. Ellison, " it said. "Knowall. "

It was signed by Logan. 

"Good heavens!" said Marjorie helplessly. 

"Knows all!" said Francis bitterly. "And that's the sort of girl youare!"

CHAPTER V

Marjorie froze in consternation. She had forgotten to allow forFrancis's gusts of anger; indeed, there had been no need, for since hisone flare-up over the telephone he had been perfectly gentle andcourteous to her. 

She stared at him, amazed. 

"But I didn't do anything to make that happen!" she protested. "Inever dreamed--why, I'd have too much pride----"

"Pride!" thundered Francis. "It's plain cause and effect. You writeto that pup in New York, and I give you the envelope and paper--helpyou straight through it, good heavens!--and you use my decency toappeal to him for help, after you've agreed to try it out and see itthrough!"

Marjorie stiffened with anger. 

"I _was_ going to try it out and see it through, " she countered withdignity. "But if you treat me this way I see no reason why I should. Even this housekeeper of yours would give me money to escape with. "

"Escape! You act as if you were in a melodrama!" said Francis angrily. "We made a bargain, that's all there is to it; and the first chance youget, you smash it. I suppose that's the way women act. . . . I don'tknow much about women, I admit. "

"You don't know much about me, " said Marjorie icily, "if you jump toconclusions like that about me. Whatever that Logan man knows hedoesn't know from me. Have you forgotten Lucille?"

"Lucille wouldn't----" began Francis, and stopped. 

"And why wouldn't she? Didn't she tell me that I was a poor littlepet, and that men could always take care of themselves and, then turnaround and help you carry me away? And it was carrying me away--it wasstealing me, as if I were one of those poor Sabine women in the historybook. "

They were fronting each other across the threshold all this time, Francis with his face rigid and pale with anger, his wife flushed andquivering. 

"I admit I hadn't thought of that, " said Francis, referring presumablyto Lucille's possibilities as an informer, and not to Marjorie's beinga Sabine woman. 

Marjorie moved back wearily and sat on the bed. 

"And you were just getting to be such a nice friend, " she mourned. "Iwas getting so I _liked_ you. There never was anybody pleasanter thanyou while we were coming up from New York. Why, you weren't like aperson one was married to, at all!"

"More like a friend nor a 'usband, " quoted Francis unexpectedly. 

Marjorie looked at him in surprise. Any one who could stop in themiddle of a very fine quarrel to see the funny side of things that waywasn't so bad, her mind remarked to itself before she could stop it. 

"What do you mean?" she asked, mitigating her wrath a little. 

"Why, you know the story; the cockney woman who had a black eye, andwhen the settlement worker asked her if her husband had given it to hersaid, 'Bless you, no, miss--'e's more like a friend nor a 'usband!'"

"Oh, " said Marjorie, smiling a little. Then she remembered, her eyesfalling on the yellow paper Francis still held. There was still muchto be settled between them. 

"But, as you were saying about Mr. Logan----"

"I was saying a lot I hadn't any business to about Mr. Logan, " saidFrancis frankly. 

"Then it's all right?" said Marjorie. "At least as far as you'reconcerned?"

He nodded. 

"Well, " said she most unfairly, "it isn't, as far as I am. Francis, Idon't think we'd better think any more of ever trying to be married toeach other. It's too hard on the nervous system. "

Francis colored deeply. 

"What do you want to do?" he demanded. 

Marjorie paused a minute before she answered. The truth was, shedidn't know. She had definitely given up her New York position. Sheliked it up here, very much indeed. She liked the O'Maras and thehouse, and she was wild to get outdoors and explore the woods. LeavingFrancis out of the question, she was freer than she had been for years. Altogether it was a bit hard to be entirely moved by loftyconsiderations. She wanted to stay; she knew that. 

"Canada's a nice place, " she began, dimpling a little and looking up atFrancis from under her eyelashes. 

"Oh, then----" he began eagerly. 

"And I want to stay, for perfectly selfish reasons, " she went onserenely. "But if my staying makes you think that there is any hopeof--of eventualities--I think I'd better go. In other words, I likethe idea of a vacation here. That's all. If you are willing to haveme as selfish as all that, why, it's up to you. I think myself I'm apig. "

"You will stay, but not with any idea of learning to like me better--isthat it?"

"That's it, " she said. "And, as I said, I feel colossally selfish--aregular Hun or something. "

"That's because you used the word 'colossal, '" he said absently. "Theydid, a lot. All right, my dear. That's fair enough. Yes, I'mwilling. "

"But no tempers, mind, and no expectations!" said Marjorie firmly, making hay while the sun shone. 

"No, " said Francis. He looked at her appraisingly. "You know, " heremarked, "the gamble isn't all one way. It's just possible that I maybe as glad as you not to see the thing through when we've seensomething of each other. I don't feel that way now, but there's notelling. "

She sprang to her feet, angry as he had been. But he had turned, afterhe said that, and gone quietly downstairs. 

The idea was new to her, and correspondingly annoying. Francis--Francis, who had been spending all his time since he got backtrying to win her--Francis suggesting that he might tire of her! Why, people didn't _do_ such things! And if he expected to tire of her whatdid he want her for at all?

She sprang up and surveyed herself in the glass that hung against therough wall, over a draped dressing-table which had apparently once beenboxes. Yes, she did look tired and draggled. Her wild-rose color wasnearly gone, and there were big circles under her eyes. And there wasa smudge on her face that nobody had told her a thing about. And herhair was mussed too much to be becoming, even to her, who looked bestwith it tossed a little. And there was not a sign of water to wash inanywhere, and the room had no furniture except the cot and thedressing-table----

Another knock stopped her here, and she turned to see young Peggy, immaculate and blooming, at the door. 

"I just came to bring you towels, and to see that everything was allright, and show you the way to the bathroom, " she said mostopportunely. "We have a bathtub, you know, even up here in the wilds!"

Marjorie forgot everything; home, husband, problems, life ingeneral--what were they all to the chance at a real bathtub? Shefollowed Peggy down the hall as a kitten follows a friend with a bowlof milk. 

"O-o! a bathtub!" she said rapturously. 

Peggy threw open a door where, among wooden floor and side-wall andceiling and everything else of the most primitive, a real and mostenticingly porcelain bathtub sat proudly awaiting guests. 

"It'll not be so good as you've been used to, " she said with moresuggestion of Irishry than Marjorie had yet heard, "but I guess you'llbe glad of it. "

"Glad!" said Marjorie. And she almost shut the door in Peggy's face. 

She lingered over it and over the manicuring and hairdressing andeverything else that she could linger over, and dressed herself in thebest of her gowns, a sophisticated taupe satin with slippers andstockings to match. She'd show Francis what he was perhaps going to bewilling to part with! So when Mrs. O'Mara's stentorian voice called"Supper!" up the stair, she had not quite finished herself off. Thesophisticated Lucille had tucked in--it was a real tribute ofaffection--her own best rouge box; and Marjorie was on the point ofadding the final touch to beauty, as the advertisement on the box said, when she heard the supper call. She was too genuinely hungry to stop. She raced down the stairs in a most unsophisticated manner, nearlyfalling over Francis and Peggy, who were also racing for thedining-room. 

They caught her to them in a most unceremonious way, each with an armaround her, and sped her steps on. She found herself breathless andlaughing, dropped into a big wooden chair with Francis facing her andPeggy and her mother at the other two sides. It was a small table, wooden as to leg under its coarse white cloth; but, oh, the beauty ofthe sight to Marjorie! There were such things as pork and beans, andchops, and baked potatoes, and apple sauce, and various vegetables, andon another table--evidently a concession to manners--was to be seen anoble pudding with whipped cream thick above it. 

"The food looks good, now, doesn't it?" beamed Mrs. O'Mara. "I'll betye're hungry enough to eat the side o' the house. Pass me yer plate tofill up, me dear. "

Marjorie ate--she remembered it vaguely afterwards, in her sleep--agreat deal of everything on the table. It did not seem possible, whenshe remembered, also vaguely, all the things there had been; but thefacts were against her. She finished with a large cup of coffee, whichshould have kept her awake till midnight; and lay back smiling drowsilyin her chair. 

The last thing she remembered was somebody picking her up like a smallbaby and carrying her out of the dining-room and up the stairs to herown bed, and laying her down on it; and a heavy tread behind hercarrier, which must have been Mrs. O'Mara's, for a rich voice thatbelonged to it had said, "Shure it's a lovely sight, yer carryin' heraround like a child. It's the lovely pair yez make, Mr. Francis!" Andthen she remembered a tightening of arms around her for an instant, before she was laid carefully on her own cot and left alone. 

Mrs. O'Mara undressed her and put her to bed, she told her nextmorning; but Marjorie remembered nothing at all of that. All she knewwas that the lady's voice, raised to say that it was time to get up, wakened her about eight next day. 

It is always harder to face any situation in the morning. Andtheoretically Marjorie's situation was a great deal to face. Here shewas alone, penniless, at the mercy of a determined young man and hisdevoted myrmidons--whatever myrmidons were. Marjorie had always heardof them in connections like these, and rather liked the name. Mr. Logan was imminent at any moment, and a great deal of disagreeablenessmight be looked for when he turned up and had it out with Francis. Altogether the Sabine lady felt that she ought to be in a state ofpanic terror. But she had slept well, --it was an excellent cot--theair was heavenly bracing, Mrs. O'Mara was a joy to think of, with herbrogue and her affectionate nature, and altogether Marjorie Ellisonfound herself wondering hungrily what there would be for breakfast, anddressing in a hurry so that she could go down and eat it. 

Peggy, rosy and exuberant, rushed at her and kissed her when she got tothe foot of the stairs. 

"Oh, isn't it lovely to think you're here, and I've got somebody tohave fun with, and Francis has to be out a lot of the time? Do youlike to dance? There's a French-Canadian family down the road, twogirls and three boys, and seven or eight other men out working withFrancis, and under him, and if you only say you like to dance I'lltelephone them to-night. Mother said I was too young to dance--and methree years learning at the convent!--but with you here sure she can'tsay a word. Oh, do say you'll have a little dance to-night! Francisdances, too, if you haven't stopped it in him. "

She stopped for a minute to take breath, and Marjorie clapped her hands. 

"I love to dance! Do have them up! Never mind whether Francis likesit or not!"

"Sure you have to mind what your own wedded husband likes, " said theIrish girl, shocked a little. "But unless he's been more soberedthan's likely by the big war, he'll be as crazy over it all as we are. There's a dozen grand dance records on the phonograph, and sure a bitof rosin on the floor and it'll be as fine as silk. Let's try themnow. "

She made for the phonograph and had a dance-record on it beforeMarjorie could answer, and in another minute had picked the smallergirl up and was dancing over the rough floor with her. And so Francis, coming in a little apprehensively, found them flushed and laughing, andwhirling wildly around to the music of a record played much too fast. Peggy, in an effort to show off heavily before Francis, came a cropperover a stool at his feet, pulling Marjorie down in her fall; both ofthem laughing like children as they fell, so that they could scarcelydisentangle themselves, and had to be unknotted by Francis. 

"Come on to breakfast now, you young wild animals, " said he, his thin, dark face sparkling all over with laughter as Marjorie had never seenit. 

"I'm killed entirely, " said Peggy. "I have to be taken. "

She made herself as limp and heavy as possible, and it ended in afree-for-all scuffle which was finally shepherded into the dining-roomby Mrs. O'Mara, who was laughing so herself that she had to stop andcatch her breath. 

So there was little time to think of one's sad lot at breakfast, either. And Peggy was so keen on the dance proposition that it tookall breakfast time to discuss it. 

"I'm taking the motor-cycle over to the clearing, and I don't thinkI'll be back till night, " said Francis unexpectedly when breakfast wasover. 

Peggy made a loud outcry. 

"Is this your idea of a honeymoon? Well, when my time comes may I havea kinder man than you! And poor Marjorie sitting home darning yoursocks, I suppose!"

"No. Not at all. I have to go over first to take some things. When Icome back I'll take her, too, if she'd like to go. Think you'd enjoyit, Marjorie?"

"What is it?" she asked cautiously, not particularly willing toimplicate herself. 

"Well, it's a little cabin--or two little cabins, rather, and alean-to--several miles away. A motor-cycle can go there by taking itslife in its hands. It's in the middle of a clearing, so to speak; butit's also in the middle of a pretty thick patch of woods around theclearing. There's a spring, and a kettle, and we make open fires. There are provisions in the lean-to, locked up so the deer can't getthem--yes, deer like things to eat. We go there to stay when there'ssuch work to do that it isn't convenient to come back and forth atnight. There are lots of rabbits and birds, and once in a while aharmless little green snake--do you mind harmless snakes, mydear?--comes and looks affectionately at you, finds you're a humanbeing, and goes away again rather disappointed. Once in a long whilean old bear comes and sniffs through the cracks of the lean-to in hopesof lunch, and goes away again disconsolately like the snake. But onlyonce since I can remember. I tell you, Marjorie, I don't ever rememberhaving a better time than when I'd built a fire out there in an openspot near the trees, and just lay on the ground with my hands behind myhead, all alone, and everything in the whole world so far away thatthere wasn't a chance of its bothering me! Just trees and sky andwood-smoke and the ground underneath--there's nothing like it in theworld!"

He had flushed up with enthusiasm. Marjorie looked at him admiringly. This was a new Francis, one she had never met. She had not realizedthat any one could love that sort of thing--indeed, no one had evertold her that such things existed. Her life had been spent betweenCousin Anna's little prim house with a pavement in front of it and apocket-handkerchief of lawn behind, and the tiny New York flat she hadoccupied with Lucille. She had never really been out-of-doors in herlife. 

"Oh, please do take me!" she cried. 

He seemed extremely pleased at her asking. 

"I can't this first trip; the side-car will be full of junk that I haveto get over there. But I _would_ like to take you on my second trip, about noon to-day. Or it may be later when I get back--it's quite adistance. "

"That will be all right, " said Marjorie sedately. "I'd like to rest alittle this morning, anyway. "

So Francis, with a light in his eyes, and whistling happily, fussedabout for a while assembling a mysterious collection of tools andcurious bundles, and rode blithely off in the general direction of whatlooked like virgin forest. 

"And now we'll plan all about the dance, " said Peggy gaily. 

"You will not, Miss! You'll plan how to help me clean the back cellarthis beautiful sunny morning that was just made for it, " said hermother sternly, appearing on the scene, and carrying off a protestingPeggy. 

Marjorie, left alone, addressed herself to resting up in preparationfor the afternoon's trip. There was a big hammock on the porch, andthither, wrapped in her heavy coat, she went to lie. She tried tothink out some plans for her future life without Francis; but the planswere hard to make. There were so many wild things to watch; even theclouds and sky seemed different up here. And presently when Peggy, nomore than healthfully excited by her hard morning's work on the cellar, came prancingly out to enjoy more of her guest's society, she found hercurled up, asleep, one hand under her cheek, looking about ten yearsold and very peaceful. 

"Isn't she the darling!" she breathed to her mother. 

"She is that!" said Mrs. O'Mara heartily. "But they've both got fineyoung tempers of their own, for all they're so gay and friendly. Somebody's going to learn who's rulin' the roost, when the first edgeof the honeymoon's off. And it's in me mind that the under-dog won'tbe Mr. Francis. "

"Oh, mother! How can you talk so horridly?" remonstrated Peggy. "Asif they ever had any chance of quarreling!"

"There's none, " said Mrs. O'Mara wisely, "but has the chancet ofquarrelin' when they're man an' wife. An' why not? Sure it brightenslife a bit! 'Tis fine when it's over, as the dentist said to me whinhe pulled out the big tooth in me back jaw. "

"Well, I know _I'm_ never going to quarrel, " said Peggy vehemently. 

"Then ye'd be a reformed character itself, an' why not start to curbyer temper now?" said her mother. "I can mind a certain day----"

But Peggy engulfed her mother in a violent embrace, holding her mouthshut as she did so, and as Peggy was even taller than Mrs. O'Mara andquite as strong, the ensuing struggle and laughter woke Marjorie. 

"Now, see that! An' take shame to yerself!" said Mrs. O'Maraapologetically. "'Twas me angel girl here, Mrs. Ellison, explainin' byfine arguments how peaceful-minded she is. Now let me away, Peggy, forthere's the meal to make. "

Peggy, laughing as usual, sat down unceremoniously by Marjorie. 

"I was just saying that I didn't see why married people shouldquarrel, " she explained, "and mother says that they all have to do someof it, just to keep life amusing. _I_ think you and Francis get alonglike kittens in a basket. "

"And does she think we quarrel?" inquired Marjorie sleepily, yet withsuspicion. 

Peggy shook her head with indubitable honesty. 

"No, she only says you will sooner or later. But that's because she'sIrish, I think; you know Irish people do like a bit of a shindy once inawhile. I admit I don't mind it myself. But you Americans born arequieter. When you quarrel you seem to take no pleasure whatever in it, for all I can see!"

Marjorie laughed irrepressibly. 

"Oh, Peggy, I do love you!" she said. "It's true, I don't likequarreling a bit. It always makes me unhappy. It's my Puritanancestry, I suppose. "

"Well, you can't help your forebears, " said Peggy sagely. 

"And now shall I call up the folks for the dance to-night?"

"Oh, yes, do!" begged Marjorie, who had slept as much as she wanted toand felt ready for anything in the world. 

She lay on in the khaki hammock in a happy drowsiness. The wind andsunshine alone were enough to make her happy. And there was going tobe a dance to-night, and she could wear a little pink dress sheremembered . . . And pretty soon there would be luncheon, and afterthat she was going off on a gorgeous expedition with Francis, wherethere was a fire, and rabbits and maybe a nice but perfectly harmlesslittle green snake that would look at her affectionately . . . Buteverybody looked at you affectionately, once you were married . . . Itwas very warming and comforting. . . . 

She was asleep again before she knew it. It was only Francis's quickstep on the porch that woke her--Francis, very alert and flushed, andexceedingly hungry. 

"Yes, yes, Mr. Francis, the food's been waitin' you this long time, "said Mrs. O'Mara, evidently in answer to a soul-cry of Francis's, forhe had not had time to say anything aloud. "Bring yer wife an' comealong an' eat. "

So they went in without further word spoken, and after all Marjoriefound herself the possessor of as good an appetite as she'd had forbreakfast. 

"Be sure to get back in time to dress for the dance, " Peggy warned themas they started off in the motor-cycle. "It's to be a really finedance, with the girls in muslin dresses, not brogans and shirtwaists!"

"The girls?" asked Marjorie of Francis wonderingly. 

"I think she means that the men aren't to wear brogans, or the girlsshirtwaists, " he explained, as they whizzed down what seemed invisibletracks in a trackless forest. "Smell the pines--aren't they good?"

Marjorie looked up, beaming. 

"Stunning!" she said. "I don't see how you ever wanted to come to NewYork, after you'd had this. "

"After a long time of this New York is pleasant again, " he said. "ButI hope you won't tire of this, my dear. "

"Oh, no!" she said fervently. "I'm crazy to go on, and see the cabinsyou told me about. I can amuse myself there the whole afternoon, ifyou have other things you want to do. "

"You dear!" said Francis. 

After that they were quiet, and rode on together, enjoying the gloriousafternoon. 

"Here we are, " said Francis after about two hours on the motor-cycle. He slipped off and held the machine for her to get out. 

"Oh, " said Marjorie, "it's like something out of a fairy-book!"

CHAPTER VI

They had gone through what seemed to Marjorie's city-bred eyes a denseforest, but which Francis had assured her was only a belt ofwoodland--quite negligible. And they had come out, now, on whatFrancis called a clearing. It was thick with underbrush, little trees, and saplings; while bloodroot flowered everywhere, and the gleam ofthickly scattered red berries showed even as they rode quickly over thegrass. In the center of things were the two cabins Francis had spokenof; one quite large--Francis seemed given to understatement--and theother of the conventional cabin size. 

"The larger one is where my men stay, " he explained. "Two of them arethere now. That's why you see a red shirt through the window. Pierreis probably leaving it there to dry. I'll take you through if youlike, but it's just a rough sort of place. The lean-to is thecook-place. All that cabin has inside is bunks, and a table or two toplay cards on, as far as I remember. The other cabin----"

He stopped short, and turned away, pretending to fuss over hismotor-cycle, which he had already laid down tenderly in just the rightspot and the right position. Marjorie, eager and swift, sprang closeto him like a squirrel. She did not look unlike one for the moment, wrapped in the thick brown coat with its furry collar. 

"The other one! Oh, show me that, and tell me all about it!" shedemanded ardently. 

"The other one----" he said. "Well--it's nothing. That's where Iwanted to bring you to stay--before I knew there wasn't anything to itbut--this. I--fixed it up for--us. "

In spite of all the things she had against Francis, Marjorie felt forthe moment as if there was something hurting her throat. She was sorryfor him, not in a general, pitying way, but the close way that hurts;as if he was her little boy, and something had hurt him, and shecouldn't do anything about it. 

"I'm--I'm sorry, " she faltered, not looking at him. 

He had evidently expected her to be angry--could she have been angry somuch as all that?--for he looked up with a relieved air. 

"I thought you might like to go in there and rest while I went over towhere the work is being done, " he said matter-of-factly. "I can't getback to you or to the Lodge till just in time for Peggy's dance. Butyou'll find things in the little cabin to amuse you, perhaps. "

"Oh, I don't need things in the cabin to amuse me!" said Marjorieradiantly. "There's enough outside of it to keep me amused for a wholeafternoon! But I do want to see in. "

He took a key out of his pocket, and together they crossed the clearingto where the little cabin stood, its rustic porch thick with vines. Francis stood very still for a moment before he bent and put the keyinto the padlock, and Marjorie saw with another tug at her heart thathis face was white, and held tense. She felt awed. Had it meant somuch to him, then?

She followed him in, subdued and yet somehow excited. He moved fromher side with a sort of push, and flung open the little casementwindows. The scented gloom, heavy with the aromatic odors oflife-everlasting and sweet fern, gave place to the fresh keen wind withnew pine-scents in it, and to the dappled sunshine. 

"Oh, how _lovely_!" said Marjorie. "Oh, Francis! Do you know whatthis place is? It's the place I've always planned I'd make for myself, way off in the woods somewhere, when I had enough money. Only Ithought I'd never really see it, you know. . . . And here it is!"

He only said "Is it?" in a sort of suppressed way; but she said nomore. She only stood and looked about her. 

There was a broad window-seat under the casement windows he had justthrown open. It was cushioned in leaf-brown. A book lay on it, whichMarjorie came close to and looked at curiously. 

"Oh--my own pet 'Wind in the Willows!'" she said delightedly. "Howqueer!"

"No, not queer, " said Francis quietly, from where he was unlocking aninner door. 

So Marjorie said no more. She laid the book down a little shyly andinvestigated further. The walls were of stained wood, but apparentlythere were two thicknesses, with something between to keep the heat andcold out, for she could see a depth of some inches at the door. Therewas a perfectly useless and adorable and absurd balcony over theentrance, and a sort of mezzanine and a stair by which you could get toit; something like what a child would plan in its ideas of the kind ofhouse it wanted. There was a door at the farther end leading intoanother room, and crossing the wooden floor, with its brown fiber rug, Marjorie opened it and entered a little back part where were packedaway most surprisingly a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. 

"Why, it isn't a cabin--it's a bungalow!" she said, surprised. "Andwhat darling furniture!"

The furniture was all in keeping, perfectly simple and straight-built, of brown-stained wood. There was a long chair at one side of thewindow-seat, with a stool beside it, and a magazine thrown down on thestool. Everything looked as if it had just been lived in, and by someone very much like Marjorie. 

"When did you do all this?" she asked curiously. 

"I didn't know you'd had any time for ages and ages. Was it----"

"Was it for some other girl, " was hovering on her lips. But she didnot ask the question. As a matter of fact, she didn't want to hear theanswer if it was affirmative. "You don't remember, " he said quietly. "I put in some time training recruits not far from here. No, of courseyou don't remember, because I never told you. It was in between myfirst seeing you, and the other time when I was going around with youand Billy and Lucille. After I saw you that first time, when I had tocome back here, near as it was to my old haunts, --well, I didn't know, of course, whether I was ever going to marry you or not. But--therewas the cabin, my property, and I had time off occasionally and nothingto do with it. So--well, it was for the you I thought might possiblybe. It made you realer, don't you see?"

Marjorie sank down as he finished, on the broad, soft window-seat; andbegan to cry uncontrollably. 

"Oh--oh--it seems so pitiful!" he made out that she was saying finally. "I--I'm so sorry!"

Francis laughed gallantly. 

"Oh, you needn't be sorry!" he said, smiling at her, though with anobvious effort. "I had a mighty good time doing it, my dear. Why, thethings you said, and the way you acted while I was doing it foryou--you've no idea how nice they were. You sat just----"

"Oh, that was why the book was on the window-seat, and the otherthings----"

"That was why, " nodded Francis. 

"And the stool close up to the lounge-chair----"

He nodded. 

"You lay there and I sat by you on the stool, " he said. "And youwhispered the most wonderful things to me----"

"I didn't!" said Marjorie, flushing suddenly. "You know perfectly wellall the time that was going on I--the real Me--was being a filing-clerkin New York, and running around with Lucille, and being bored withfussy people in the office, and hunting up letters for employers andhoping they wouldn't discover how much longer it took me to find themthan it did really intelligent people----"

"No, " said Francis, suddenly dejected, "you didn't. But--it was a nicedream. And I think, considering all that's come and gone, you needn'tbegrudge it to me. "

"I don't, " said Marjorie embarrassedly. "I--I only wish you wouldn'ttalk about it, because it partly makes me feel as if my feelings werehurt, and partly makes me feel terribly self-conscious. "

"Then perhaps it _was_ you, a little, " said Francis quietly. 

Marjorie moved away from him, and went into the kitchen again, with herhead held high to hide the fact that her cheeks were burning. Hehadn't any right to do that to her. Why, any amount of men might bemaking desperate love to dream-Marjories--Mr. Logan, forinstance, --only his love-making would probably be exceedingly full ofquotations, and rather slow and involved. 

She turned, dimpling over her shoulder at Francis, who had beenstanding in rather a dream, where she had left him. 

"Francis! Do you suppose any other men are doing that?" she askedmischievously. "Supposing our good friend Mr. Logan, for instance, hasinstalled me in a carved renaissance chair in his apartment, and issaying nice things to me----"

"Marjorie!"

"Well, you see!" said Marjorie. "It isn't a good precedent. "

"Well, I'm your husband, " muttered Francis quite illogically. 

"Oh, this has gone far enough, " said Marjorie with determination. Andshe went back to the kitchen. 

"I'll leave you here, if that's the case, " said Francis in a friendlyenough way. "I have to go over to the other cabin and see how thingsare and then out to where some work is going on. Can you findamusement here for awhile?"

"Oh, yes, " said Marjorie. She felt a little tired, after all; and alittle desirous of getting away from Francis. 

"Well, if you're hungry, I think there are some things in the kitchen;and the stove is filled, and there are matches, " he said in amatter-of-fact way. She wondered if he intended her to get herself alarge and portentous meal. She did not feel at all hungry. 

"If you'll tell me when you think you'll be back for me I'll have alittle lunch ready for you before we go, " she was inspired to say. 

"That's fine, " said Francis with the gratitude which any mention offood always inspires in a man. "Don't overwork yourself, though. Youmust be tired yet from your trip. "

She smiled and shook her head. She went over to the door with him, andwatched him as he went away, as bonny and loving a wife to allappearances as any man need ask for. Pierre, who had been dwelling inthe cabin along with his red shirt, for the purpose of doing amuch-needed housecleaning for himself and his mates, looked out at themwith an emotional French eye. 

"By gar, it's tarn nice be married!" he sighed, for his last wife hadbeen dead long enough to have blotted out in his amiable mind therecollection of her tongue, and he was thinking over the acquirement ofanother one. 

Meanwhile Marjorie went back to the cabin that had been built aroundthe dream of her, picked up "The Wind in the Willows, " and tried toread. But it was difficult. Life, indeed, was difficult--butinteresting, in spite of everything. Francis was nice in places, afterall, if only he wouldn't have those terrifying times of being too muchin earnest, and over her. It was embarrassing, as she had said. Sherose up and walked through the place again. It was so dainty and sofriendly and so clean, so everything that she had always wanted--how_had_ Francis known so much about what she liked?

She curled down on the window-seat, tired of thinking, and finallyslept again. It was the change to the crisp Canada air that made hersleep so much of the time. 

She sprang up in a little while conscious that there was something onher mind to do. Then she remembered. She had promised to getluncheon--or afternoon tea--or a snack--for Francis before he went. She felt as if she could eat something herself. 

"At this rate, " she told herself, "I'll be as fat as a _pig_!"

She thought, as she moved about, to look down at the little wrist-watchthat had been one of Francis's ante-bellum gifts to her. And it washalf-past five o'clock. Then it came to her that by the time she hadsomething cooked and they had made the distance back to the lodge itwould be time for the dance, and therefore that this meal would have tobe supper at least. It was more fun than cooking in the kitchenette ofthe apartment, because there was elbow-room. Marjorie's housewifelysoul had always secretly chafed under having to prepare food in akitchen that only half of you could be in at a time. 

There was a trusty kerosene stove here, and a generous white-paintedcupboard full of stores and of dishes. She had another threatening ofemotion for a minute when she saw that the dishes were some yellowDutch ones that she remembered admiring. But she decided that it wasno time to feel pity--or indeed any emotion that would interfere withmeal-getting--and continued prospecting for stores. Condensed milk, flour, baking-powder, and a hermetically-sealed pail of lard suggestedbiscuits, if she hurried; cocoa and tins of bacon and preserved fruitand potatoes offered at least enough food to keep life alive, ifFrancis would only stay away the half-hour extra that he might. 

Heaven was kind, and he did. The biscuits and potatoes were baked, thefruit was opened and on the little brown table with the yellow dishes, and the bacon was just frizzling curlily in the pan when Francis walkedinto the kitchen. 

If it seemed pleasantly domestic to him he was wise enough not to sayso. He only stated in an unemotional manner that there were eggs putdown in water-glass in the entry back; and as this conveyed nothing toMarjorie he went and got some and fried them, and they had suppertogether. 

"You're a bully good cook, " he told her, and she smiled happily. Anybody could tell you that much, and it meant nothing. Sometimesdealing with Francis reminded her of a Frank Stockton fairy-tale in herchildhood, where some monarch or other went out walking with a Sphinx, and found himself obliged to reply "Give it up!" to every remark of thelady's, in order not to be eaten. 

"We won't have time to clear up much, " was his next remark, lookingpensively at a table from which they had swept everything but onebiscuit and a lonely little baked potato which had what Marjorie termed"flaws, " and they had had to avoid. "But then, I suppose you might saythere wasn't much to clear. We'll stack these dishes and let Pierre orsomebody wash 'em. Us for the dance. "

They piled the yellow dishes in a gleeful hurry, and Francis went outand disposed of the scraps and did mysterious things to the kerosenestove. They were whizzing back the way they had come before Marjoriehad more than caught her breath. 

"We'll be a little late, if you have to do anything in the dressingline. I have to shave, " said Francis. 

Marjorie, who really wasn't used to men, colored a little at thismarital remark, and then said that she supposed that it must have beenhard not to do it in the trenches. 

"Oh, that was only the poilus, " said Francis, and went on into a floodof details about keeping the men neat for the sake of their morale. Itwas interesting; but Marjorie thought afterward that perhaps it wasbecause anything would have been while she was whirring along throughthe darkening woods in the keen, sharp-scented air. She loved it moreand more, the woods and the atmosphere, and the memory of the littlecabin. She promised herself that she would try some day to find theplace by herself. Maybe she could borrow a horse or a bicycle or somemeans of locomotion and go seeking it in the forest. 

"Now hurry!" admonished Francis as he landed her neatly by the veranda. "Don't let them stop you for anything to eat, as Mother O'Mara willwant to. "

So she scurried up to her room, not even waiting to hear the voice oftemptation, and began hunting her belongings through for something. Itwas foolish, but she was more excited over the thought of this rough, impromptu backwoods dance than she ever had been in the city by realdances, or out with Cousin Anna at the carefully planned subscriptiondances where you knew just who was coming and just what they were goingto wear. 

Finally she gave up her efforts at decision, and went out to findPeggy. Her room, she knew, was on the third floor. 

"Come in!" said Peggy's joyous voice. Marjorie entered, and foundPeggy in the throes of indecision herself. 

"You're just what I wanted to see!" said she. "Would you wear thisgreen silk that's grand and low, but a bit short for the last styles, or this muslin that I graduated in, and it's as long as the moral law, and I slashed out the neck--but a bit plain?"

"Why, that's just what I came to ask you, " said Marjorie. "What kindof clothes do you wear for dances like these?"

"Well, the grander the better, to-night, as I was telling everybodyover the telephone. Mrs. Schneider, now, the priest's housekeeper, shehas a red satin that she'll be sure to wear, --and the saints keep herfrom wearing her pink satin slippers with it, but I don't think theycan. It would be a strong saint at the least, " said Peggythoughtfully. "I'd better be in my green. "

"Then I can wear----" said Marjorie, and stopped to consider. She hadone frock that was very gorgeous, and she decided to wear it. It wouldcertainly seem meek contrasted with Mrs. Schneider's red satin. 

"Come on, and I'll bring this, and we can hook each other up, " Peggyproposed ardently, and followed her down in a kimono. 

So they hooked each other up, except where there were snappers, andadmired each other exceedingly. Marjorie's frock was a yellow one thatLucille had hounded her into buying, and she looked as vivid in it as afirefly. 

Francis had been given orders to wear his uniform, which he was doing. He looked very natural that way to Marjorie; there were others of themen in uniform as well. There were perhaps twenty people alreadyarrived when the girls came downstairs, seven or eight girls and twelveor fourteen men. And Marjorie discovered that young persons in thebackwoods believed in dressing up to their opportunities. Some of thefrocks were obviously home-made, but all were gorgeous, even in thecase of one black-eyed _habitant_ damsel who had constructed aconfection, copied accurately and cleverly from some advancedfashion-paper, out of cheesecloth and paper muslin!

One of the men was sacrificed to the phonograph, and for hours it neverstopped going. Records had been brought by others of the men andgirls, and Marjorie had never seen such gay and unwearied dancing. Shewas tossed and caught from one big backwoodsman to another, the dancesbeing "cut-in" shamelessly, because the women were fewer than the men. They nearly all danced well, French or Yankee or Englishmen. Therewere a couple of young Englishmen whom she particularly liked, who hadridden twenty miles, she heard, to come and dance. And finally shefound herself touched on the shoulder by her own husband, and dancingsmoothly away with him. 

"This isn't much like the last time and place where we danced, " hesaid, smiling down at her and then glancing at the big, bare room withits kerosene lamps and bough-trimmed walls. "Do you remember?"

She laughed and nodded. "Maxim's, wasn't it? But I like this best. There's something in the air here that keeps you feeling so alive allthe time, and so much like having fun. In spite of all our tragedies, and your very bad temper"--she laughed up at him impertinently--"I'menjoying myself as much as Peggy is, though I probably don't look it. "

"There isn't so much of you to look it, " explained Francis. Their eyesboth followed young Peggy, where, magnificent in her green gown andgold slippers, she was frankly flirting with a French-Canadian who wasno match for her, but quite as frankly overcome by her charms. "Butwhat there is, " he added politely, "is very nice indeed. "

They laughed at this like a couple of children, and moved on toward aless frequented part of the floor, for there was a big man in khaki, one of Francis's men, who was coming dangerously near, and had in hiseye a determination to cut in. Francis and Marjorie moved downwardstill they were almost opposite the door. And as they were dancingacross the space before the door there was a polite knock on it. Theystood still, still interlaced, as an unpartnered man lounging near itthrew it open. And on the threshold, like a ghost from the past, stoodMr. Logan. In spite of his mysterious nervous ailment he had nervedhimself to make the journey after Marjorie, and walked in, softly andslowly, indeed, and somewhat travel-soiled, but very much himself, andapparently determined on a rescue. Marjorie stared at him in horror. Rescue was all right theoretically; but not in the middle of as good aparty as this. And what could Francis do to her now?

What he did was to release her with decision, and come forward with thecourtesy he was quite capable of at any crisis, and welcome Logan totheir home. 

"You've caught us in the middle of a party, " he concluded cordially, "but I don't suppose you feel much like dancing. Perhaps after alittle something to eat and drink you'd like to rest a bit. Come speakto Mr. Logan, my dear, " he finished, with what Marjorie stigmatized asextreme impudence; and Marjorie, in her firefly draperies, came forwardwith as creditable a calm as her husband, and greeted Mr. Logan, afterwhich Francis called Mrs. O'Mara to show him to a room where he couldrest. 

"I came to talk to you----" began Mr. Logan as he was led hospitablyaway. 

"I'll be at your service as soon as you've had a little rest and food, "said Francis in his most charming manner. 

He actually put his arm about Marjorie again and was going on with thedance, when the telephone rang. The woman nearest it answered it, andcalled Francis over excitedly. Marjorie, too proud to ask anyquestions, was nevertheless eaten up with curiosity, and finally edgednear enough to hear above the phonograph. 

"You'll be all right till to-morrow? Very well--I'll be out then andsee what to do. "

"What's the matter?" demanded Peggy, who had no pride to preserve. 

Francis smiled, but looked a little worried, too. 

"Nothing very serious, but inconvenient. Pierre, the cook for theoutfit, suddenly decided to leave to-day, and did. He said he thoughtit was time he got married again, and has gone in quest of a bride, Isuppose. The deuce of it is, we're so short-handed. Well, nevermind----"

"If mother wasn't so silly about the ghosts, " began Peggy. 

"Well, she is, if ye call it silly, " said Mrs. O'Mara from where shestood with her partner in all the glory of a maroon satin that fittedher as if she were an upholstered sofa. "I'd no more go live in thatclearin' with the Wendigees, or whatever 'tis the Canucks talk about, than in Purgatory itself. Wendigees is Injun goblins, " she explainedto her partner, "and there's worse nor them, too. "

She crossed herself expertly, and in almost the same movement swept herpartner, not of the tallest, away in a fox-trot. She fox-trotted verywell. 

Marjorie went on dancing, and hoping that Mr. Logan would go to bed andto sleep, or have a fit of nerves that would incapacitate him fromfurther interfering with her. But the hope was in vain, for Francisappeared from nowhere in about fifteen minutes, and beckoned her tofollow him to where she knew Logan was waiting. 

The two men sat down gravely in the little wooden room where Logan hadbeen shown. It was Francis who spoke first. 

"Mr. Logan insists, Marjorie, that you appealed to him for rescue. Heputs it to me, I must say, very reasonably, that no sensible man wouldtravel all this way to bring back a girl unless she had asked him to. He says that you wrote him that you were being treated severely. "

"I didn't! I never did!" exclaimed outraged Marjorie, springing up andstanding before them. "Show me my letter!"

"Unfortunately, " said Mr. Logan wistfully, "I destroyed it, because Ihave always found that the wisest thing to do with letters. But I amprepared to take my oath that you wrote me, asking me to help you. Iam extremely sorry to find that you are in such a position asto--forgive me, Mr. Ellison, but it seems rather like it--to be sodominated by this gentleman as not to even admit----"

"You see what it looks like, " broke in Francis, turning to his wifefuriously. "Never ask me to believe you again. I don't trust you--Inever will trust you. Nobody will, if you keep on as you've begun. Goback with him, then--you're not my slave, much as you may pretend it. "

"I won't!" said Marjorie spiritedly. "I've had enough of this. I'llstay here, if it takes ten years, till you admit that you've treated mehorribly, and misjudged me. I've played fair. I've no way of provingit, against you two men, but I have! I'll prove it by any test youlike. "

"There's only one way you can convince me that one word you've saidsince you came up here was the truth, " he told her, suddenly quiet andcold. "If you stay, of your own free will, out there in the clearing;if you take over the work that Pierre fell down on this evening, andstay there looking after me and my men--I'll believe you. There's nofun to doing that, just work; it stands to reason that you wouldn't dothat for any reason unless to clear yourself. If you don't want to dothat, you may go home with this gentleman; indeed, I won't let you doanything else. Take your choice. "

Marjorie looked at him for a moment as if she wanted to do somethingviolent to him. Then she spoke. 

CHAPTER VII

"I see what you mean, " she said. "I wasn't sporting in the firstplace--I wouldn't live up to my bargain. That's made you more apt tobelieve that I've been acting the same way ever since. You don't thinkI can see _any_thing through. Well--not particularly for yoursake--more for my own, I guess--I'm going to see this through, if I diedoing it. I'll stay--and take Pierre's place, Francis. "

Francis's severe young face did not change at all. 

"Very well, " he said. 

"But you understand, " she went on, "that I'm not doing this to winanything but my own self-respect. And at the end of the three months, of course, I shall go back to New York. And you'll let me go, and seethat I get free. "

"I wouldn't do anything else for the world, " said Francis in the sameunmoved voice. 

"Very well, then--we understand each other. " She turned to Logan, whohad sprung to his feet and tried to interfere a couple of times whileshe talked. "And please remember that this arrangement does not gobeyond us three, " she said. "I would prefer that no one else knew howmatters stood. "

Logan looked a little baffled. He was ten years older than either ofthem, but so many actual clashing things happening had never come hisway before. His ten years' advantage had been spent writing stylisticessays, and such do not fit one for stepping down into the middle of alot of primitive young emotions. He felt suddenly helpless beforethese passionate, unjust, emotional young people. He felt a littleforlorn, too, as if the main currents of things had been sweeping themby while he stood carefully on the bank, trying not to get his feetwet. A very genuine emotion of pity for Marjorie had brought him uphere, pity more mixed with something else than he had been willing toadmit. It was the first thing he had done for a long, long time thatwas romantic and unconsidered and actual. And it appeared that, afterall, he wasn't needed. Concentration on the nuances of minorfifteenth-century poets had unfitted him for being swept on, as thesehad been, by the world-currents. They had married each other, pushedby the mating instinct in the air--the world's insistence on marriageto balance the death that had swept it. Now they were struggling tofind their balance against each other, to be decent, to be fair, tomake themselves and each other what they thought they ought to be. Hecould see what they were doing and why much more clearly than theycould themselves. But he couldn't be a part of it--he had stood asidefrom life too long, with his nerves and his passion for artisticdetails and pleasures of the intellect. 

But he bowed quietly, and smiled a little. He felt suddenly very tired. 

"Certainly it shall go no farther, " he assured her. "And I owe you anapology for the trouble which I fear I have ignorantly brought uponyou. If there is anything I can say----"

She shook her head proudly, and Francis, fronting them both, made amotion of negation, too. 

"You must be tired, " he added to his gesture. "Or would you care towatch the dancers awhile?"

"No, I thank you, " said Mr. Logan courteously in his turn. "If youwill tell me of some near-by hotel----"

"There's only this, " explained Francis. "But I think your room isready by now. Miss O'Mara--I'll call her--will show you to it. "

Peggy, summoned by a signal whistle from the ballroom, convoyed Loganupstairs with abundant good-will and much curiosity. She had neverseen any one like him before, and took in his looks and belongings withthe intense and frank absorption of an Indian. Indeed, as sheexplained to Marjorie, whom she met at the foot of the stairs, it wasonly by the help of the saints and her own good decency that she didn'tfollow him into his room and stay there to watch him unpack. 

"With the charming, purry voice he has, and all the little curlicueswhen he finishes his words, and the little cane--does he never sleepwithout it, would you say?--and the little Latin books he reads----"

But here Marjorie pulled her up. 

"How on earth do you know he reads little Latin books?"

Peggy flushed generously. 

"Well, if you must know, I gave one teeny weeny peek through the crackin the door after I left him, and he was thrown down across his cotlike a long, graceful tomcat or leopard or something, and he pulled alittle green leather book out of his pocket and went to reading it onthe spot. 'Pervigilium Veneris, ' its name was. All down the side. "

Marjorie had heard of it; in fact, in pursuance of her education Mr. Logan had made her read several translations of it. It had bored her alittle, but she had read it dutifully, because she had felt at thattime that it would be nice to be intellectually widened, and becauseLogan had praised it so highly. 

"Oh, yes, I know, " she said. 

"And is it a holy book?" Peggy inquired. 

"Just a long Latin poem about people running around in the woods atnight and having a sort of celebration of Venus's birthday, " saidMarjorie absently. It occurred to her Logan would have been worseshocked if he could have heard her offhand summing-up of his pet poemthan he had been by her attitude about going back to New York with him. But she had more important things on her mind than Latin poetry. WhenPeggy met her she was on her way to go off and think them out. 

"Good-night, Peggy, " she said. "I'm going to bed. I have to get upearly and go to work. "

Peggy laughed. 

"Don't talk nonsense. The dance isn't half over, and everybody's crazyto dance with you. You can sleep till the crack of doom to-morrow, andwith not a soul to stop you. "

Marjorie shook her head, smiling a little. 

"No. I'm going over to the clearing to do the cooking for the men. Itold Francis I would, tonight. "

Peggy made the expected outcry. 

"To begin with, I'll wager you can't cook--a little bit of a thing likeyou, that I could blow away with a breath! And you'd be all alonethere. Mother won't do it because she's afraid of wraiths"--Peggypronounced it "wraths, " and it was evidently a quotation from Mrs. O'Mara--"and it would be twice as scary for you. Though, to be sure, Isuppose you'd have Francis. I suppose that's your reason, the both ofyou--it sounds like the bossy sort of plan Francis makes. "

This had not occurred to Marjorie. But she saw now that the onlyplausible reason not the truth that they could give for her takingPierre's job was her desire to see more of her husband. 

"Well, it's natural we should want to see more of each other, " shebegan lamely. 

"Oh, I suppose so, " said Peggy offhandedly, and with one ear prickedtoward the music. "But when my time comes I hope I won't be that badthat I drag a poor girl off to do cooking, so I can see the more ofher. "

"You're getting your sexes mixed, " said Francis coolly, strolling upbehind the girls. "Peggy, your partner is looking for you. I'll takeyou over after luncheon to-morrow, Marjorie. "

"Very well, " she said. "Good-night. "

If his heart smote him, as Marjorie's little, indomitable figuremounted the stairs, shoulders back and head high, he made no sign ofit. Instead, in spite of the preponderance of men, he went back to thedance, and danced straight through till the end had come. 

Marjorie went to bed, as she had said she would do. She did not go tosleep. Marjorie, as has been said, was not brave--that is, she couldand did do brave things, but she always did them with her heart in herslippers. She did not know what the cooking would be, but she was sureit would be worse than she could imagine, and too much for herstrength. The only comfort was the recollection that the dear browncabin was hers to live in, every moment that she was not at work. Shewould have that rest and comfort. There was the shelf of books chosenfor her by the far-off Francis who was not doubtful of her, and lovedher and dreamed about her, and built a house all around the vision ofher. And there might be times when she could hurry up a great deal, and lie on the window-seat and look out at the woodlands and dream. 

She finally went to sleep. She wakened with a start, early, vaguelyremembering that there was a great deal to do. Full remembrance cameas she sprang out of bed and ran down the hall to her bath. She had topack, and after luncheon Francis would carry her off to imprisonmentwith hard labor. And--why on earth was she doing it, when she couldstill go back with Logan? For a long half hour she struggled withherself, one minute deciding; to go back, the next deciding to stay. Finally she faced the thing. She would see it through, if it killedher. She would make Francis respect her, if it took six months insteadof three at hard labor. She would take the wages for the work she haddone, and go back home a free, self-respecting woman. 

She dressed herself quickly, and went down to breakfast, braced to playher part before the O'Maras. Short as her time with them, she was fondof them already. 

"I think your devotion is a bit hard on yer wife, " remarked Mrs. O'Mara, whom Peggy had put in possession of the facts. "If I were her, I'd value an affection more that had less o' dishwashin' in it!"

"She's helping me over a pretty hard place. " Francis said this calmly. But he flushed in a way that, as Marjorie knew, meant he was disturbed. "You know every man counts just now, and labor is cruelly scarce. I'mdoing mine and a day-laborer's work besides, now. And the contract hasto be finished. "

"Well, of course, there's a gown or so for her in it, " said Mrs. O'Maracomfortably. "And 'tis no more than a woman should do, to help out herman if he needs it. Have ye any aprons or work-dresses, me dear, forif not Peggy and me will make ye some. We've a bolt of stuff. "

"No, and I'd be very glad if you would, " said Marjorie, feeling thething more irrevocable every moment. 

"And rest this morning, and I'll pack for you, " said Peggyaffectionately. She led Marjorie out to the swing herself, and wentupstairs to pack before she went to help her mother with the breakfastdishes. 

Marjorie was too restless to lie still. She went out and walked aboutthe place, and came back and lay down, and so put in the interminablehours till luncheon. After luncheon Francis appeared like themessenger of doom he was, put her and a small bag in the side-car andcarried her off to her place of servitude. 

The ride, in spite of all, was pleasant. For a while neither of themspoke. Then Francis did. 

"I feel as if this was unfair to you--for apparently the O'Maras think, and I suppose everybody will, that you really are doing this to showyour fondness for me. I shall have to ask you to let them think so. "

"I have, " she answered curtly. 

"You don't understand. I--I am going to have to stay in the cabin withyou. . . . There is the little upstairs balcony, I can bunk in that. You know--the one over the door, with the little winding stair leadingup to it. I--I'm sorry. "

This was one more thing Marjorie hadn't counted on. But after all whatdid it matter? She expected to be so deadly tired from the work shehad promised to do that she would never know whether Francis was in thehouse at all. And if there really were bears once in awhile it wouldreally be better not to be all alone with them. 

"Very well, " she said. She looked hungrily at the thick trees theywere speeding through. She supposed she would never have time to lieout under a tree, or go hunting for flowers and new little wood-pathsagain. She had read stories of lone, draggled women in logging-camps, toiling so hard they hadn't even time to comb their hair, but alwayswore it pulled back tight from their forehead. This wasn't alogging-camp, but she supposed there was very little difference. 

She was very quiet for awhile. Francis, turning finally, a littleuneasy, found that she was quietly crying. It happened that he hadnever seen her cry before. 

"Please, Marjorie!" he begged in a terrified voice. "Please stop! Isthere anything I can do?"

"You have done everything, " she said in a little quiet voice that triednot to break, but did, most movingly, on the last word. 

She said nothing more after that. After awhile she got hold ofherself, dried her eyes, and began to watch the woods desperatelyagain, as if she would never see them any more. If she had but knownit, she was making Francis suffer as much as she was suffering herself. 

"I'll bring the rest of your things over now, " he said, when he hadcarried her little bag in and put it on her bed. He went out and lefther alone, in the little wood-walled bedroom with its high, latticedwindows, and Indian blankets and birch-bark trimmings. She lay on thebed apathetically awhile, then she began to notice things a little. There was a kodak on her bureau. There were snowshoes, too small for aman surely--if you could tell of a thing the size of snowshoes--hangingon the wall. There was a fishing-rod case, with something hanging nearit that she imagined was a flybook. There was a little trowel, and agraceful birch-bark basket, as if some one might want to go out andbring home plants. She got up finally, her curiosity stronger than herunhappiness, and investigated. 

There was dust on everything. That is, except in one particular. Ontop of each article she had noticed was a square, clean place about thesize of an envelope. There had been a note lying or pinned to each oneof the things. 

It occurred to Marjorie that a man who had not noticed the dust mighthave overlooked one of the notes; and she commenced a detailed andcareful search. The kodak told no tales, nor the snowshoes. Thefishing-rod was only explanatory to the extent of being too light andsmall for a man, and the basket's only contents were two pieces ofoilcloth, apparently designed to keep wet plants from dripping too much. 

She rose and tiptoed out into the living-room. There might be morenotes there. Her spirits had gone up, and she was laughing to herselfa little--it felt like exploring Bluebeard's castle. She investigatedthe book case, shaking out every book. She ran up to the toy balconyand even pushed out the couch there, noticing for the first time thatthe balcony had curtains which could be drawn. But there was nothingbehind couch or curtains. She put her hands on the little railing andlooked down at the room below her, to see if she had missed anything. And her eyes fell on a cupboard which was level with the wall at oneside, and had so escaped her eye heretofore. Also there was ascrapbasket which might tell tales. 

She dashed down the little stair, and made for the scrapbasket, butFrancis was more thorough than she had thought, and it was empty. Sheopened the cupboard and looked in--there was a little flashlight lyingnear it, and she illuminated the dark with it. There in the cupboardlay a banjo. 

"Gracious!" breathed Marjorie. "What a memory!" For she _could_ playthe banjo, and it appeared that she must have said so to Francis inthose first days. "He must have dashed home and made out lists everynight!" she concluded as she dragged it out. It was unstrung, but newstrings lay near it, coiled in their papers. And under the papers, solike them that he had forgotten to destroy it, lay a veritable note. 

"It isn't really from him to me, " she thought, her heart beatingunaccountably as she sat back on her heels and tore the envelope open. "It's from the Francis he thought he was, to the Marjorie he thought Iwas. "

But she read it just the same. 

"For my dear little girl, if she comes true, " was the superscription. 

"I don't know whether you'll find this first or last, honey. But it'sfor you to play on, sometimes, in the evenings, sitting on thewindow-seat with me, or out on the veranda if you'd rather. Butwherever you sit to play it, I may stay quite close to you, mayn't I?"

She was tired and overstrained. That was probably why she put botharms around the banjo as if it was somebody that loved her, and criedon it very much as if it were a baby. And when she went back to herroom to replace things as she had found them she carried it with her. 

She was calmer after that, for some reason. She had the illogicalfeeling that some one had been kind to her. She put her things away inthe drawers, and even had the courage to lay out for herself theall-enveloping gingham apron, much shortened, which Mrs. O'Mara hadloaned her till she and Peggy could run up some more. She supposedFrancis would want her to start in with the cooking that night. So sheput on her plainest dress and easiest shoes, and then, there beingnothing else to do, took the banjo out into the sitting-room and beganto string it. And as she strung she thought. 

She was going to have to be pretty close to Francis till her term ofservice was up; she might as well not fight him. It would make thingseasier all round if she didn't, as long as she had to keep on friendlyterms before people. 

The truth was, that she couldn't but feel softened to the man who hadwritten that boyish, loving note. "Even if it wasn't to the her heknew now, it was to the Marjorie of last year, and she was a nearrelation, " thought the Marjorie of this year whimsically. 

So when Francis came back with the rest of her baggage he found her onthe window-seat with the banjo in her lap, fingering it softly, andsmiling at him. She could see that he was a little startled, but hehad himself in hand directly, and came forward, saying, "So you foundthe banjo. I got it for you in the first place. Is it any good?"

"Oh, did you?" inquired his wife innocently. "Yes, it's a very goodbanjo. Maybe I'll find time to play it some day when the housework forthe men is out of the way. What do I do when I begin? And hadn't webetter go over now?"

"I didn't expect you to start till to-morrow, " he explained. "I'vetaken one of the men off his regular work to attend to it till then. "

"Oh, that's kind of you, " she answered, still friendly and smiling to adegree that seemed to perplex him. "But perhaps you could take me overto-night and show me. I'll get supper for us two here, if you like, and afterward we can go over, and you can introduce me to your men asthe new cook. I hope they'll like me as well as Pierre. "

He looked at her still as if she were behaving in a very unexpectedway. A tamed Marjorie was something new in his experience; andtameness at this juncture was particularly surprising. Francis wasbeginning to feel like a brute, which may have been what his wifeintended. 

"That's very kind of you, " he managed to say. "You're sure you are nottoo tired for any of that?"

"Being tired isn't going to count, is it?" she asked, smiling. "No, Idon't mind doing it. It will be like playing with a doll-house. Youknow, I love this little place. "

In her wicked heart she was thinking, "He shall miss me--oh, if I cankeep my temper and be perfectly lovely for three months he shall missme so when I go and get my divorce that he will want to _die_!" Andshe looked up at him, one hand on the banjo, as if they were the bestfriends in the world. 

"It isn't time to get supper yet, is it?" she pursued. "You used tolike to hear me sing. Don't you want to sit down here by me while Isee how the banjo works, just for a little while?"

"No!" said Francis abruptly. "I have to--I have to go and see after alot more work. "

He flung out the door, and it crashed after him. And Marjorie laughedsoftly and naughtily to herself over the banjo, and pushed the notethat had dwelt within farther down inside her dress. "I wish I had therest!" said she. "Let me see. The kodak was for both of us to go outand take pictures together, of course. The snowshoes--that would havehad to wait till winter. The basket and trowel were so we could plantlots of lovely woodsy things we found around the cabin, to see if theywould take root. And he must have been going to teach me to fish. Iwonder why he wasn't going to teach me to shoot. There must be a riflesomewhere--maybe it hasn't lost its note, if it was hidden hard enough. And he remembered how I liked 'surprises. ' He certainly would havemade a good lover if I hadn't----"

She did not finish. She got up and hunted for the rifle, which was notto be found. Then she went into the kitchen and hunted for stores, andwondered how on earth a balanced menu could be evolved from cans anddried things exclusively. But the discovery of a cache of cannedvegetables helped her out, and as she really was a good cook, and lovedcooking, what Francis returned to was not supper, but a very excellentlittle dinner. And his wife had found time, as well, to dress herselfin the most fluffy and useless-looking of rosy summer frocks, withwhite slippers. She looked more fragile and decorative and childishthan he had ever seen her, leaning across the little table talkingbrightly to him about her adventures in the discovery of the thingsthat made up the meal. 

An old quotation about "breaking a butterfly upon a wheel" came to himas she chattered on, telling him delightedly how she had made up hermind to surprise him with tomato bisque if it was her last act, and howshe had discovered a box that was labeled "condensed milk, " and openedit with infinite pains and a hatchet; and how after she had nearlykilled herself struggling with it, she had finally opened it, and foundthat what it really contained was deviled ham in small, vivid tins; andhow she triumphed over Fate by using the ham with other things for_hors d'oeuvres_; and how she finally found powdered milk in othertins, and achieved her goal after all. 

She was exactly as she would have been if all had gone well; and it isnot to be supposed that Francis could help feeling it. At first he wasquiet, almost gloomy; but presently, as she talked gaily on about allthe trifles she could think of--domestic trifles all of them, or thingsto do with the cabin and its surroundings--he gave himself up to theenjoyment of the hour. It was as if he said to himself, "I'll forgetfor this little space of time that it isn't real. " He lookedabsorbedly into the little vivid face at the other side of the table, and once, before he thought, put out his hand to take her hand where itlay, little and slim and fragile-looking, on the table. He drew itback quickly, but not before Marjorie had seen the instinctive motion. 

She smiled at him brilliantly, and touched him lightly on the shoulderas she passed. 

"Come, help me, Francis, " she said. "This is our house, you know, andI mustn't do everything alone. And then I must hurry over to the othercabin, and look over my new kingdom, and it would be a shame to do itafter your faithful slaves had gone to bed. They would have to get upand dress and stand at attention, wouldn't they, when they heard youraugust footstep?"

She laughed openly at him as she went into the kitchen, and he followedher and helped her clear away obediently and smiling. 

"And now, we'll go over, " she said, when everything was in place again. "Get me my long blue cape, Francis, please. It's hanging against thedoor in my room. "

He came and wrapped her in it, and crossed with her the space betweenthe two cabins. 

"They're up yet, " he said, and knocked on the door. 

CHAPTER VIII

There was nothing surprising or exciting to behold when the door flewopen, and the two entered. 

"Oh, I've met you before, " said Marjorie politely to the man who hadopened it. She had danced with him the night before, and it waspleasant to find that she had not to deal entirely with strangers. Hewas a tired-looking, middle-aged Englishman, with a tanned, plump facethat had something whimsical and what Marjorie characterized to herselfas motherly about it. And the fact that he was clad in a flannel shirtand very disreputable overalls did not make him the less distinctivelygentle-bred. He greeted her courteously, and took out his pipe--a pipethat was even more disreputable than his clothes. 

"Mrs. Ellison wanted to come over to-night and see what she had to do, "Francis explained. 

"You mean that you were in earnest about her volunteering to takePierre's place?" demanded the Englishman, looking at the little smilingfigure in pink organdy. 

"I know I look useless, " interposed Marjorie for herself. "But Mr. Ellison will tell you that I really can work hard. If somebody willonly show me a little about the routine I'll be all right. "

"I've taken over Pierre's job for the moment, " he replied. "AssuredlyI'll show you all I can. But it's rough work for a girl. "

Marjorie smiled on. 

"Very well, show me, please, " she demanded, as she would if thequestion had been one of walking over red-hot plowshares. 

She stood and looked about her as he answered her, so intent that shedid not hear what he replied. 

The place had rows of bunks in various stages of untidiness. It waslighted by two very smoky kerosene lamps, and had in its middle a tablewith cards on it. Three men sat about the table, as if they did notquite know whether to come forward and be included in the conversationor not. At the further end Marjorie could see the door that led to thecooking-place, and eyed it with interest. 

"These are all of the men who are here, " Francis explained. "There isanother camp some miles further in the forest. "

"Am I to cook for them as well?" demanded Marjorie coolly. 

"Oh, no, " the Englishman answered. He seemed deeply shocked at theidea. "They have a cook. By the way, Mrs. Ellison, it is only poeticjustice that you should have taken over this job; for do you know thatthe reason Pierre gave for his sudden flight in the direction ofmarriage was that you and Mr. Ellison looked so happy he got lonesomefor a wife!"

"Good gracious!" gasped Marjorie before she remembered herself. . . . "That is--I didn't know our happiness showed as far off as that. "

She did not dare to look at Francis, whom she divined to be standingrigidly behind her. "And now could you show me the place where I haveto cook, and the things to cook with?"

Mr. Pennington--Harmsworth-Pennington was his veritable name, as shelearned later--took the hint and swept her immediately off to thelean-to. The _tout-ensemble_ was not terrifying. It consisted of akerosene stove of two burners, another one near it for emergencies, awooden cupboard full of heavy white dishes, and a lower part to itwhere the stores were. 

"The hardest thing for you will be getting up early, " he saidsympathetically. "The men have to have breakfast and be out of here byseven o'clock. And they take dinner-pails with them. Then there'snothing to get till the evening meal. "

"Of course there'd be tidying to do, " suggested Marjorie avidly, forshe hated disorder, and saw a good deal about her. 

"If you had the strength for it, " said Pennington doubtfully. 

"Francis thinks I have, " she answered with a touch of wickedness. 

Francis, behind her, continued to say nothing at all. 

She spent five minutes more in the lean-to with the opportunePennington, and gathered from him, finally, that next morning therewould have to be a big pot of oatmeal cooked, and bacon enough friedfor five hungry men. Griddle cakes, flapjacks, or breadstuff of somekind had to be produced also; coffee in a pot that looked big enoughfor a hotel, with condensed milk, and a meal apiece for theirdinner-hour. 

"I just give 'em anything cold that's left over, " said Penningtonunsympathetically. "There has to be lots of it, that's all. "

Marjorie cried out in horror. 

"Oh, they mustn't have those cold! But--do they have to have all thatevery morning?"

"Great Scott, no!" exclaimed the scandalized Pennington. "Some daysthey just have flapjacks, and some days just bacon and eggs and bread. And sometimes oatmeal extra. I didn't mean that all these came atonce. "

She felt a bit relieved. 

"I'll be in to-morrow at six, " she assured him, still smiling bravely. "I think I can manage it alone. "

"One of us can always do the lifting for you, and odd chores, " he toldher. 

After that she met the other men, and went back to the cabin. Franciswas still following her in silence. 

"How nice they are, even the grumpy ones!"

she told him radiantly. "Don't forget to knock on my door in timeto-morrow, Francis. "

She gave him no time to reply. She simply went to bed. And in spiteof all that had come and gone she was so tired that she fell asleep assoon as she was there. 

She was awakened by Francis's knock at what seemed to her the middle ofthe night. Then she remembered that the pines shut off the light sothat it was high daylight outside before it was in here. A vaguefeeling of terror came over her before she remembered why; and for amoment she lay still in the unfamiliar bed, trying to remember. Whenshe did remember she was so much more afraid that she sprang outhurriedly, because things, for some reason, are always worse when youaren't quite awake. Or better. But there was nothing to be betterjust now. 

She bathed and dressed with a dogged quickness, trying meanwhile toreassure herself. After all, it was only cooking on a little largerscale than she was used to. After all, it was only for a few months. After all, she mightn't be broken down by it. And--this was the onlything that was any real comfort--it would free her so completely ofFrancis, this association with him, and the daily, hourly realizationthat he had treated her in a cruel, unjust way, that when she went backshe would be glad to forget that he had ever lived; even the days whenhe had been so pleasant and comforting. 

If Francis knew that the little aproned figure, with flushed cheeks andhigh-held head, was terrified and homesick under the pride, he saidnothing. Nothing, that is, beyond the ordinary courtesies. He offeredto help her on with her cloak. After one indignant look at him she lethim. The indignation would have puzzled him; but Marjorie's feelingwas that a man who would doom you to this sort of a life, put you tosuch a test as Francis had, was adding insult to injury in helping youon and off with wraps. He, of course, couldn't grasp all this, andfelt a little puzzled. 

She walked out and over to the door of the lean-to, leaving him tofollow. 

Pennington's kind and motherly face was peering anxiously out. It cameto Marjorie that she was going to have a good deal of trouble keepinghim from taking too much work off her shoulders. Some men have thematernal instinct strongly developed, and of such, she was quite sure, was Pennington. She wondered what he was doing so far from England, and what she could do to pay him back for his friendliness--for shefelt instinctively that she had a friend in him. 

Sure enough, he had started the big pot of water boiling for theoatmeal, and was salting it as she entered. 

"Oh, let me!" she cried, and before his doubting eyes she began to stirthe oatmeal in. 

"I suppose there never was a double boiler big enough, " she begandoubtfully. "It would save so much trouble. "

"We might make one out of a dishpan, perhaps, swung inside this pot, "he said. 

"And I always thought Englishmen weren't resourceful!" she commented, smiling at him. "We'll try it to-morrow. "

Meanwhile, having stirred in all the oatmeal necessary, she lowered theburners a little and began on the coffee. Then she saw the point ofthe other stove, for she found she needed it for the bacon andbiscuits. The actual work was not so complicated; the thing thatappalled her was Pennington's insistence on the awful amount of foodneeded for the six men and herself. But, of course, as she remindedherself, there _was_ a difference between cooking for Cousin Anna andherself on the maid's day out, or for Lucille and herself, and cookingfor six hungry men who worked in the open air at reforesting. She didnot quite know how people reforested, but she had a vague image in hermind of people going along with armfuls of trees which they stuck inholes. 

Presently the breakfast was prepared, and Pennington banged briskly ona dishpan and howled "Chow!" in a way that was most incongruous. Hereally should have been a Rural Dean, by his looks and his gentle, almost clergymanly genial manners, and every time Marjorie looked athim in his rough clothes she got a shock because he wasn't one. 

There was a long trestled table down the middle of the men's cabin, andeach man, streaming out, picked up a plate and got it filled with food, and sat himself down in what seemed to be an appointed place. Therewere mugs for coffee, and Marjorie, under Pennington's direction, setthem at all the places, and then went up and down filling them. Therewas a tin of condensed milk on the table, set there by Pennington'shelpful hand. 

She ran up and down, waiting on her charges, and feeling very much asif she were conducting a Sunday-school class picnic. The men, exceptPennington and the other young Englishman, who never talked to the lastday she knew him, seemed struck into terrified silence by their newcook. 

And then a terrible thought came over her--it was rather a funny one, though, for the excitement of doing all this new work had stirred herup, rather than saddened her. She had never prepared any dinner-pailsfor them. She fled back into the cook-place precipitately, snatchedthe pails down from the shelf, and began feverishly spreading largebiscuits with butter and bacon. 

"There's marmalade in the big tin back of you, " said Pennington'ssoftly cultivated Oxford voice from the doorway. "And if you fill thesmall buckets with coffee they will take them, together with the restof their dinners. "

"But is that enough variety, just bacon and marmalade sandwiches?" sheasked. 

He nodded. 

"There are tinned vegetables that you can give them to-night, if youwish. "

So, he helping her, they got the last dinner-pail filled before thehungry horde poured out again. Each passed with a sheepish orcourteous word of thanks, took his pail and went on. It did not occurto Marjorie till she saw Pennington go, eating as he went a largebiscuit, that he must have cut his own meal very short in order to helpher. 

"What nice people there are in the world!" she breathed, sinking on thedoorstep a minute to think and take breath. 

She sat there longer than she really should, because the air was socrisp and lovely, and just as she was beginning to rise and go in tothe summoning dishes, a small striped squirrel trotted across the grassand requested scraps with impudent wavings of his two small front paws. So she really had to stay and feed him. And after that there was abird that actually seemed as if it was going to walk up to her, almostas the squirrel had done. He flew away just at the most excitingmoment, but Marjorie didn't hold it against him. And then--why, then, she felt suddenly sleepy and lay down with her cloak swathed aroundher, under a tree, for just a minute. And when she looked at herwrist-watch it was eleven o'clock. 

She felt guilty to the last degree. What would they say at the officeto a young woman who took naps in the morning?

And then the blessed memory that there was no reason why she shouldn'tdo exactly as she pleased with her time, so long as the dishes weredone after awhile, came to her. 

"There's no clock in the forest, " she thought, smiling drowsily; andlay serenely on the pine-needles for another half hour. 

When she did go in, the quantity of dishes wasn't so terrific. Therehad been no courses. Each man had left behind him an entirely emptyplate and mug and knife and fork; that was all. And Marjorie seemed tohave more energy and delight in running about and doing things than shehad ever known she possessed, in the heavy New York air. She washedthe dishes and swept out the cabin with a gay good will that surprisedherself. She tried to feel like Cinderella or Bluebeard's wife or someof the oppressed heroines who had loomed large in her past, but itwasn't to be done. After that she was so hungry--her own breakfast hadbeen taken in bites, on the run--that she ate up all the remainingbiscuits, after toasting them and making herself bacon sandwiches asshe had for the men; quite forgetting that her own abode lay near, filled to repletion with stores of a quite superior kind. The baconsandwiches and warmed-over coffee tasted better than anything she hadever eaten in her life. 

And then there was a whole long afternoon ahead of her, before she hadto do a solitary thing for the men's supper!

"I must have 'faculty'!" said Marjorie to herself proudly, thinkingmore highly of her own talents than she ever had before. The fact thatas a filing-clerk she had not shone had made her rather meek about herown capacities. She had always taken it impudently for granted thatshe was attractive, because the fact had been, so to speak, forced onher. But there had been a very humble-minded feeling about herincapacity for a business life. Miss Kaplan, for instance, she of theexuberant emotions and shaky English, had a record for accuracy andspeed in her particular line which was unsullied by a single lapse. And Lucille, lazy, luxury-loving Lucille, concealed behind herfluffinesses an undoubted and remorseless executive ability. Comparedto them Marjorie had always felt herself a most useless person. Thatwas why she always was meeker in office hours than out of them. And tofind herself swinging this work, even for one meal, without a feelingof incapacity and unworthiness, made her very cheered indeed. Thetruth was, she was doing a thing she had a talent for. 

"And I'm not tired!" she marveled. The change of air was responsiblefor that, of course. 

She went back to her forgotten cabin, singing beneath her breath. Ithad a rather tousled air, but in her new enthusiasm she went through itlike a whirlwind. She attacked her own room first, and createdspotless order in it. Then she went at the living-room. Then--it waswith a curious reluctance--she climbed the stairs to Francis's absurdlittle curtained balcony. 

Francis, evidently, did not sleep so very well, or he had not thatnight at all events. The couch was very tossed, one pillow lay on theground with a dent in its midst as if an angry hand had thrust itthere, and, most unfairly, hit it after it was down. The covers were"every which way, " as Marjorie said, picking them up and shaking themout with housewifely care. Francis's pajamas and a shabby brown terrybath-robe lay about the floor, the bathrobe in a ridiculously lifelikeposition with both its sleeves thrown forward over the pillow, as if itwere trying to comfort it for all it had been through. 

Everything had aired since morning, so she disguised the couch again inits slip-cover, put the cretonne covers back on the pillows, and thecouch stood decorous and daytime-like again. She laid her hand on thepillow for a moment after she was all through, as if she were touchingsomething she was sorry for. 

"Poor Francis!" she said softly, smiling a little. "After all, heisn't so terribly much older than I am. " She felt suddenly motherlytoward him, and like being very kind. That maltreated pillow was sofunny and boylike. "It isn't a bit like the storybooks, " she mused. "In them you get all thrilled because a man is so masterful. Well, "Marjorie tried to be truthful, even when she was alone with herself andthe couch, "I guess I was thrilled, a little, when he carried me offthat way. I certainly couldn't have gone if I'd known about thehousework business. But now, the only part of him I like is when he_isn't_ sitting on me. . . . I wonder if I'll ever be the same person, after all this?"

She never would. But, though she wondered, she did not really thinkthat she was changing or would change. As a matter of fact, she hadmade more decisions, gone through more emotions, and become more of awoman in the little time since Francis had carried her off than in allher life before. The Marjorie of a year ago would not have answeredthe challenge of her husband to prove herself an honorable woman bytaking over a long, hard, uncongenial task. She would have picked upher skirts and fled back to New York with Logan. 

"I suppose it's the war, " said Marjorie uncomfortably. "Dear me, I didthink that when the war was over it would be over. And everythingseems so _real_ yet. I wonder if when I'm an old, old lady talking toLucille's grandchildren I shall tell them, 'Ah, yes, my dears, yourGrand-aunt Marjorie was a very different person in the days before thewar! In those days you didn't have to be in earnest about anything. You didn't even to have any principles that showed. Life wasn't realand earnest a bit. People just went to tea-dances and talkedflippantly, and some of the men had drinks. And everybody laughed agreat deal, and it was decadent, and the end of an era, and a lot ofshocking things--but it wasn't half as hard as living now, becausethere weren't standards, except when they were had by aunts andemployers and such people. Ah, them was the days!' And thegrand-nieces, or whatever relation they'll be to me, will look shocked, because they'll be children of their time, and it will still befashionable to be earnest, and they'll say, 'Dear me, what a terribletime to have lived in!' And they'll be a little bit envious. Andthey'll say, 'And were even you frivolous?' And I'll sigh, and say, 'Yes, indeed, my dears! I married a worthy young man (as young menwent then) in a thoughtless moment, and then when he came back Iwouldn't stay married to him. But by that time the war was over, andwe'd all stopped being flippant and frivolous. So I washed dishes forhim three months before I went and left him. ' And they'll commend mefaintly for doing that much, and go away secretly shocked. "

Marjorie was so cheered up by her own fervent imaginings by this timethat she stopped to sit down on the arm of a chair, all by herself, andlaugh out loud. And so Francis saw her, as he came in for something, and looked up, guided by her laugh. He had scarcely heard her laughbefore for some time. She was perched birdlike on the arm of the chairat the foot of his couch, just to be glimpsed between the draperies ofthe balcony. She looked, to his eyes, like something too fragile andlovely to be real. And she was laughing! That did not seem real, either. She might have been pleasant, even cheerful, but this sprite, swinging there and laughing at nothing whatever, almost frightened him. For an awful moment he wondered if he had driven Marjorie mad. . . . He had been unkind to her--hard on her, he knew. 

Before he could stop himself he had rushed up the stairs to the littlebalcony. 

"Marjorie--Marjorie! What were you laughing about?" he demanded inwhat seemed to her a very surprising way. 

"Why, don't you want me to laugh?" she demanded in her turn, verynaturally. 

"I--why--yes! But you frightened me, laughing all by yourself thatway. "

"Oh, I see!" said Marjorie, looking a little embarrassed. "Peopleoften look surprised when I forget, and do it on the street. I thinkabout things, and then when they seem funny to me I laugh. Don't youever have thoughts all by yourself that you laugh over, when you'realone?"

Francis shook his head. He had a good mind, and a quick one, but hedid not use it as something to amuse himself with, as Marjorie did withhers. He used it to work with. 

"I beg your pardon for startling you, " he said. "But----"

"I know. It looked queer. I was just thinking how different everybodyand everything is since the war. We're all so much more grown up, andresponsible. And I was hearing myself talk to Lucille's grandchildren, and tell them all about the days before the war, when everybody saidthey just didn't care. . . . Aren't things different?"

Francis nodded. 

"Yes, they're different. I don't know exactly how, but they are. Andwe are. "

"Do you think you are?"

Francis sat down on the couch, looked at her, bright-eyed and grave, and nodded again. 

"Yes. All the values are changed. At least they are for me and mostof the men I came across. I don't think the women are so different;you see, the American women didn't have anything much to change them, except the ones who went over. We were in such a little while itdidn't have time to go deep. "

He meant no disparagement, but Marjorie flared up. 

"You mean me--and Lucille--and all the rest!" she accused him. "You'requite wrong. That was just what I was telling Lucille's grandchildren. We are different. Why, do you think I would have thought I owed youanything--owed it to you to stay up here and drudge--before the war? Inever thought about being good, particularly, or honorable, or owingthings to people. Oh, I suppose I did, in a way, because I'd alwaysbeen brought up to play fair. But never with the top of my mind. Youknow yourself, all anybody wanted was a good time. If anybody had toldme, when I was seventeen--I was seventeen when the war started, wasn'tI?--that I'd care more about standards than about fun, I'd have justthought they were lying, or they didn't know. And right and wrong havecome to matter in the most curious way. "

"I think perhaps, " he answered her--they had quite forgotten that theywere enemies by now--"that the war was in the air. Maybe the worldfelt that there wouldn't be much chance for good times for it--for ourgeneration--again, and snatched at it. You know, for a good many yearsthings won't be the same, even for us in America, who suffered less, perhaps, than any other nation in the world. Life's harder, and itwill be. "

"Oh, always?" demanded Marjorie. "You know, Francis, I always wantedgood times worse than anything in the world, but that isn't saying Ihad them. I didn't. Won't I ever have any more? That few weeks whenI raced around with you and Billy and Lucille was really the first timeI'd been free and had fun with people I liked, ever since I'd beenborn. And--and I suppose it went to my head a little bit. "

She looked up at him like a child who has been naughty and is sorry, and he looked over at her, his face going tense, as it did when he feltthings. 

"I don't think we were exactly free agents, " he said musingly. "Something was pushing us. I'm not sorry . . . Except that it washardly fair to you----"

She leaned toward him impulsively, holding out her hand. He benttoward her, flushing. They were nearer than they had been since thatday when his summons to war came. And then Fate--as Mr. Logan mighthave said--knocked at the door. 

CHAPTER IX

The two on the balcony moved a little away from each other. ThenMarjorie, coloring for no reason whatsoever, stepped down the toystairs that wound like a doll's-house staircase, and went to the door. 

It was Peggy O'Mara, no more and no less, but what a Peggy! She lookedlike an avenging goddess. But it was not at Marjorie that hervengeance was directed, it was plainly to be seen, for she swept thesmaller girl to her bosom with one strong and emotional arm, and said, "You poor abused little lamb! I've come to tell you that I know allabout it!"

Marjorie jerked herself away in surprise. For one thing, she had beenvery much interested in the conversation she had been carrying on withFrancis, and had entirely forgotten that she might ever have had anyclaim to feel abused. For another thing, Peggy knew more than sheshould, if Logan had kept his promise. 

"Won't--won't you come in?" she asked inadequately. "And please tellme what you mean. "

"Mean! I mean I know all about it!" said Peggy, who was sixteen only, in spite of her goddess-build, and romantic. 

She came in, nevertheless, holding tight to Marjorie as if she mightfaint, unaided; guided her to the downstairs couch, and sat down withher, holding tight to her still. 

"Yes, " said Marjorie, with a certain amount of coldness, consideringthat she was being regarded as an abused lamb, "you said that before. And now please tell me what it is that you know all about. "

"Well, if that's the way you take being defended, " said Peggy with acertain amount of temper, "I'll just go back the way I came!"

"But, Peggy, I don't know anything about it!" she pleaded. "Pleasetell me everything. "

"There's nothing much to tell, " said Peggy, quite chilly in her turn. But now she had more to face than Marjorie. Francis, militant andstern, strode down the steps and planted himself before the girls. Hefixed his eye on Peggy in a way that she clearly was not used to standup under, and said, "Out with it, Peggy!"

So Peggy, under his masculine eye, "made her soul. "

"It's nothing that concerns you, Francis Ellison!" she began. "It'ssimply that I've learned how a man can treat a woman. And you--youthat I've known since I was a child! And telling me fairy-tales ofbold kidnapers and cruel husbands and all, and I never knowing that youwere going to grow up and be one!"

Marjorie laughed--she couldn't help it, Peggy was so severe. Francislooked at her again in some surprise, and Peggy was plainly annoyed. 

"I should say, " said Francis with perfect calm, "that our honorablefriend Mr. Logan had been confiding in you. His attitude is a littlebiased; however, let that pass. Just what did he say?"

"Just nothing at all, except that you were a charming young man, and hewished that he were as able to face the world and its problems as you, "Peggy answered spiritedly. "None of your insinuations about his honor, please. And shame on you to malign a sick man!"

"Oh, is Mr. Logan sick?" asked Marjorie, forgetting other interests. She turned to Francis, forgetting their feud again, in a common andinexcusable curiosity. "Francis! Now we'll know what it really wasthat ailed him--the nervous spells, you know? I always _told_ you itwasn't fits!"

"How do you know it isn't?" said Francis. "Peggy hasn't said. "

"She wouldn't be so interested if it was, " said Marjorie triumphantly. "It takes an old and dear wife to stand _that_ in a man. "

They had no business to be deflected from Peggy and her temper by anysuch consideration; but it was a point which had occupied their lettersfor a year, off and on, and there had been bets upon it. 

"Let me see, I suppose those wagers stand--was it candy, or a Hunhelmet?" said Francis. 

"Candy, " said Marjorie. "But it was really the principle of the thing. Ask her. "

Francis turned back to Peggy, who was becoming angrier and angrier; forwhen you start forth to rescue any one, it is annoying, even as Loganfound it, to have the rescue act as if it were nothing to her whethershe was rescued or not. 

"Now, what really does ail him, Pegeen?" he asked affectionately. "Didyou see him, or don't you know?"

"Of course I saw him--am I not nursing him? And of course I know!Poor man, the journey up here nearly killed him. "

"How? It seemed like a nice journey to me, " said Marjoriethoughtlessly. 

"There's no use pretending you're happy, " said Peggy relentlessly. "Iknow you're not. It's very brave, but useless. "

"But has he fits?" demanded Marjorie with unmistakable intensity. 

"He has not, " said Peggy scornfully. "I don't know where you'd get theidea. He fainted this morning when he tried to get up. He didn't comedown to breakfast, and we thought him tired out, and let him lie. Butafter awhile, perhaps at nine or so, we thought it unnatural that anyone should be asleep so long. So I tiptoed up, because when you're asfat as mother it does wear you to climb more stairs than are needful. And there was the poor man, all dressed beautifully, even to hisglasses with the black ribbon, lying across the bed, in a faint. "

"Are you sure it was a faint?" the Ellisons demanded with one voice. 

Peggy looked more scornful, if possible, than she had for some time. 

"We had to bring him to with aromatic spirits of ammonia, and slappinghis hands. And the doctor says it's his heart. That is, it isn'treally his heart, but his nerves are so bad that they make some sort ofa condition that it's just as bad as if he had heart-trouble really. Simulated heart-trouble, the doctor called it. You understand, hedoesn't pretend, himself; his heart makes his nerves pretend, as wellas I can make it out. Sure it must be dreadful to have nerves that actthat way to you. I wonder what nerves feel like, anyway. "

Peggy herself was getting off the topic, through her interest in thesubject. 

"But how did you find out that I was beating Marjorie?" inquiredFrancis calmly, pulling her back. 

She shot a furious glance at him. 

"I wish you hadn't reminded me. I'd forgotten all about hating you foryour horrid ways. It was just before he came to. He thought he wastalking to you, and he said, 'You had no right to force her to do thatwork, Ellison, it will kill her. '"

"And was that all?" asked Marjorie. 

"Wasn't that enough? And I ask you, Marjorie Ellison, isn't it true?Hasn't Francis forced you to come over here and do his cooking for him?Oh, Francis, I can't understand it in you, " said poor Peggy, looking upat him appealingly. "You that were always so tender and kind withevery one, to make a poor little thing like Marjorie work at cookingand cleaning for great rough men. "

Francis had colored up while she spoke. One hand, behind his back, wasclenching and unclenching nervously. He was fronting the two girls, but turned a little away from Marjorie and toward Peggy, so Marjoriecould see it. Aside, from that he was perfectly quiet, and so far asany one could see, entirely unmoved. Only Marjorie knew he was notunmoved. That dark, thin, clenching hand--she had seen it before, restless and betraying, and she knew it meant that Francis was angry orunhappy. She felt curiously out of it all. She had made up her mindonce and for all to go through with her penance, if one could call itthat. Her mind was so unsettled and hard to make up that, once made upon this particular point, she felt it would be more trouble to stopthan to go on. She leaned a little back against Peggy's guarding arm, and let the discussion flow on by her. 

"Marjorie is free to go at any time; she knows that, " he said. 

Marjorie looked at him full. She said nothing whatever. But Peggy'sIrish wit jumped at the right solution. 

"Yes, free to go, no doubt, but with what kind of a string to it?" shedemanded triumphantly. "I'll wager it's like the way mother makes mefree of things. 'Oh, sure ye can smoke them little cigarette things ifye like--_but_ if ye do it's out of my door ye'll go!'"

Marjorie thought it was time to take a hand here. Francis was standingthere, still, not trying to answer Peggy. He seemed to Marjoriepitifully at their mercy; why, she did not know, for he had neithersaid nor looked anything but the utmost sternness. And Marjorieherself knew that he was not being kind or fair--that he had not been, in his exaction. Still she looked at that hand, moving like a sentientthing, and spoke. 

"Peggy, some day I'll tell you all about it, or Francis will. You andFrancis have been friends for a long, long time, and I don't want youto be angry with him because of me--just a stranger. And for thepresent, I can tell you only this, that Francis is right, I am doingthis of my own free will. You are a darling to come and care aboutwhat happens to me. "

Peggy was softened at once. She pulled Marjorie to her and gave her asounding kiss. 

"And you're a darling, too, and you're not a stranger--don't we loveyou for Francis's sake--oh, there, and I was forgetting! I suppose I'mnot to be down on you, Francis. But I couldn't help thinking thingswere queer. It's not the customary way to let your bride spend herhoneymoon, from all I've heard. Oh, and it's five o'clock, and ittakes an hour and a half to get back, though I borrowed the priest'shousekeeper's bicycle. "

She sprang up, dropping from her lap the bundle of aprons whichMarjorie had waited for. 

"Mind, Francis, I've not forgiven you yet, " she called back. "Whenpoor Mr. Logan is better I'll have the whole story out of him, or myname's not Margaret O'Mara. "

She was on her bicycle and away before they could answer her. 

"And it's time I went over to the cook-shed, " said Marjorie evenly, rising, too, and beginning to unfasten the bundle of aprons. They werea little hard to unfasten, from the too secure knots Mrs. O'Mara hadmade, and she dropped down again, bending intently over them to getthem free. Suddenly they were pushed aside, and Francis had flunghimself down by her, with his head on her knees, holding her fast. 

"Oh, Marjorie, Marjorie!" he said. "Don't stay. I can't bear to haveyou acting like this--like an angel. I've been unfair and unkind--itdidn't need Peggy to tell me that. Go on away from me. And forgiveme, if you can, some time. "

She looked down at the black head on her knees. It was victory, then--of a sort. And suddenly her perverse heart hardened. 

"Please get up, Francis, " she said in the same cold and even voice shehad used before. "I haven't time for this sort of thing; it's time Iwent over and got the men their supper. They'll be ready for it atsix, Pennington said. "

He rose quietly and stood aside, while she took off the apron of Mrs. O'Mara's that she had been making shift with, and put one of the newones on in its place, and went out of their cabin. She never lookedback. She went swiftly and straight to the cook-shed and began work onthe evening meal. There was a feeling of triumph in her heart. Andnothing on earth would tempt her to go now. Francis was beginning tofeel his punishment. And she wasn't through with him yet. 

She found an oven which sat on top of the burners, and had just managedto lift it into its place when Pennington walked leisurely in behindher. 

"I had to come back to get your husband, " he explained, "and I thoughtI'd see if you were in any troubles. Let me set that straight for you. "

He adjusted it as it should be, and lingered to tell her anything elseshe might wish to know. 

"I'm going to give them codfish cakes for breakfast, " she confided tohim, "a great many! But what on earth can I have for their dinners?"

"There is canned corn beef hash, " he suggested. "That would do allright for to-night. Or you might have fish. "

"Where would I get it?"

"Indians. They come by with strings of fish to sell, often. I think Ican go out and send one your way. "

"You speak as if there were Indians around every corner, " she said. 

"No-o, not exactly, " he answered her slowly. "But the truth is that Isaw one, with a string of fish, crossing up from the stream, not longago. As I was riding and he walking, I think it likely that I shallintercept him on my way back. That is, if you want the fish. "

"Oh, indeed, I do, " she assured him eagerly. "That is--do you thinkthe Indian--he won't hurt me, will he? And do you think he would cleanthem for me?"

"I think I can arrange that with him, " Pennington, who was rapidlyassuming the shape of a guardian angel to Marjorie, assured her. 

"And now I must go and tell your husband that he's wanted down wherethe men are. "

"Thank you, " she said, looking up at his plump, tanned, rather quaintface--so like, as she always thought, a middle-aged rector's in anEnglish novel--with something grotesque and yet pathetic about it. "Idon't know what I'd do without your help. In a day or so I may get tothe point where I'll be very clever, and very independent. "

She smiled up at him, and he looked down at her with what shecharacterized in her own mind as his motherly expression. "You're sucha little thing!" he said as if he couldn't help it. Then, after ahasty last inquiry as to whether there was anything more he could do, he went off in search of Francis. 

She looked after him with a feeling of real affection. 

"He's the nearest I have to a mother!" she said to herself whimsically, as she addressed herself to the preparation of the evening meal. Shehad conceived the brilliant plan of doing the men's lunches, where itwas possible, the night before. In this way, she thought, though itmight take a little more time in the afternoon, it would make thingseasier in the mornings. Such an atmosphere of hurry as she had livedin that morning, while it had been rather fun for once, would be tootiring in the long run, she knew. And the run would be long--threemonths. 

The Indian came duly with the fish, all cleaned and ready to fry. Shewas baking beans in the oven for to-morrow's luncheons. So she bakedthe potatoes, too, and hunted up some canned spinach, and then--havingmiscalculated her time--conceived the plan of winning the men's heartswith a pudding. She was sure Pierre's cookery had never run to suchdelicacies. And even then there was time to spare. The men were late, or something had happened. So she looked to be sure that there wasnothing more she could do, and then strayed off to the edges of thewoods, looking for flowers. She found clumps of bloodroot, greatanemone-flowers that she picked by the handful. There were some littleblue flowers, also, whose name she did not know; and sprays ofwintergreen berries and long grasses. Greatly daring, she put one ofthe low, flat vases she had found in her cabin in the center of themen's trestle-table, and filled it with her treasure-trove. Then, alittle tired, she sat down by the table herself, resting for a momentbefore the drove should come home. 

They were in on her before she knew it. She thought afterward that shemust have fallen asleep. How dainty and how winning a picture of homeshe made for the rough men, she never thought. But the men did, andthe foremost one, a big, rough Yankee, instinctively halted on tiptoeas he saw her, leaning back in her chair with her eyes shut. Marjoriewas not in the least fragile physically, but she was so little andslender that, in spite of her wild-rose flush and her red lips, shealways impressed men with a belief in her fragility. 

"Look at there, boys!" he half said, half whispered; and the crewhalted behind him, looking at Marjorie as if she were some verywonderful and lovely thing. 

The steps, or perhaps the eyes fixed admiringly on her, woke Marjorie. She opened her eyes, and smiled a little. She had gone to sleep verypleased, on account of the flowers, and of having arranged her work soit fitted in properly. 

"Oh, you've come!" she said, smiling at them as a friendly child mightsmile, flushed with sleep. "Did you have a hard day? Everything'sready. "

She was up and out in the cook-shed, half-frightened of their friendlyeyes, before they could say any more. That is, to her. 

"Gosh, that's some wife of yours!" said one of them to Francis, who wasa little in the rear of the others. "But ain't she a little thing?"

Francis simply said "Yes" constrainedly. He had heard all that before. Pennington, who did not as a rule like girls, had been telling him whata lucky devil he was, as they went over to the working place together. He also had said that Marjorie was a little thing. And the note in hisvoice as he said it had insinuated to Francis, who was all toosensitive for such insinuations, that she was scarcely the type ofwoman to cook for a men's camp. Francis felt quite remorseful enoughalready. He sat down with the rest, while Marjorie brought in firstthe big platter of fish, then the vegetables, and a big pitcher ofcocoa which she had made. 

"Some eats!" said another of the crew, and Marjorie dimpledappreciatively. While she went out again, after something she hadforgotten, one of the Frenchmen whispered bashfully to Pennington, whowas Francis's assistant. He smiled his slow, half-mocking, half-kindlysmile, and passed it on to Francis. 

"Ba'tiste says that he wonders if the lady would sit down and eat withus. Do you think she would, Ellison? It's a long time since any of ushad a lady keep house for us. "

"I'll ask her, " said Francis, the taciturn. He would rather have donea good many things than go to Marjorie with a request, as things stoodbetween them, but there was nothing else for it. He came on her, standing on tiptoe at the cupboard, like a child, trying to reach downa cup. She had counted one too few. 

He stood behind her and took it down, reaching over her head. 

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Pennington!" she said, taking it for granted thatit was her accustomed helper. 

"It isn't Pennington; it's--me, " said Francis. "I--I wouldn't havebothered you, but you see the men sent me out here on an errand. "

"The men sent you on an errand?" she said wonderingly. "That soundstopsy-turvy. I thought you sent them on errands. "

"Not this kind. They want to know if you won't sit down and eat withthem to-night. The flowers and the food made a hit, and they agreewith everybody else in the world, as far as I can see, " said Francis, with bitterness in his voice, "that this is no work for you to bedoing. "

"Did they dare to say so?" said Marjorie angrily. 

"No--oh, no. Don't mind me, Marjorie. I'm a little tired and nervous, I expect--like Logan, " he ended, trying to smile. "Will you come?"

"Why, of course!" said Marjorie instantly. "And I think it's _sweet_of them to want me! Tell them just to wait till I take my apron off, and I'll be with them. "

He went back and she followed him and sat down. At first she feltembarrassed, a little--she felt as if she were entertaining a largedinner-party, and most of them strangers. But Pennington, herunfailing comfort, was at one side of her, and the friendly, ifinarticulate, Ba'tiste at the other; and presently she was chatteringon, and liking it very much. 

None of the men had seen much of women for a long time. A couple ofthe better-class ones went into town, or what passed for it, occasionally, to such dances as the few women near by could get up. But that was practically all they saw of girls. And this "littlething"--it was a phrase they always used in speaking of her, till thevery last--with her pretty face and pretty, shy ways, and excellentcooking--and more than all, her pluck--won them completely. 

And when she finally, with obvious delight in their delight, producedthe pudding, everything was over but the shouting, as they told herhusband afterward. She had been a bit apprehensive about it, but itproved to be a good pudding, and large enough. Just large enough, though. They finished it to the very last crumb, sauce and all, andthanked her almost with tears. Pierre, it appeared, had not cookedwith any art, he had merely seen to it that there was enough stokingmaterial three times a day. From the moment of that meal on, anythingthat Marjorie wanted of those men, to the half of their weekly wages, was hers for the asking. 

She liked it very much. Everybody likes to be admired and appreciated. She could not help casting a glance of triumph over at Francis, wherehe sat maritally at the other end of the table, the most silent personpresent. 

Pennington helped her clear away after supper. Indeed, competition tohelp Marjorie clear away was so strong that Pennington had to use hisauthority before the men settled down to their usual routine ofcard-playing or lounging about on the grass outside. She accepted hishelp gratefully, for she was beginning to feel as if she had alwaysknown him. She did not think of him in the least as a man. He seemedmore like an earthly providence. 

"You know, I really am very strong, " she explained to him as he saidsomething that betrayed his feeling that this work would be too muchfor her. "I think I shall be able to do all this. Really, it isn'tanything more than lots of women have to do who keep boarders. And itisn't for----"

She stopped herself. She had been on the point of saying, "And itisn't for long, anyway. " She did not know what Francis had told themen about their plans, or his plans for her cooking, and she wasresolved to be absolutely loyal to him. When she went he should havenothing to say about her but that she had behaved as well as any womancould. 

"If you're ready, we'll go back to the cabin, Marjorie, " said Francis, appearing on the edge of the threshold, looking even more like athundercloud than normal lately. 

She hung up the dishcloth, gave Pennington a last grateful smile, andfollowed Francis back. 

"Pennington's a good fellow, " he said abruptly as they gained their ownporch, "but I don't want you to have too much to do with him. He'skindly and all that, but he's a remittance man. "

Marjorie's eyes opened wide with excitement at this. She had heard ofremittance men, but never seen one before. 

"How perfectly thrilling!" she said. 

CHAPTER X

Francis looked at her as if she had said something very surprising. 

"Thrilling?" he said, apparently considering it the wrong adjective. 

She nodded. 

"Why, yes. I've read of remittance men all my life, but I neverdreamed I'd meet one. And--I always wanted to know, Francis, " saidshe, as she opened the door and walked in and settled herself cozily onthe window-seat. "What does he remit? They never say. "

"He doesn't remit, " explained Francis rather disgustedly, following herover and sitting down by her at the other corner of the seat. "Otherpeople do it. "

"'Curiouser and Curiouser! I begin to think I'm in Wonderland!'" shequoted. "I think the easiest way for you to do will be just to tell meall about remittance men, the way you do a child when it starts to askquestions. Just what are they, and do they all look like Pennington, and are they trained to be it, or does it come natural?"

"A remittance man, " Francis explained again, "is a term, more or less, of disgrace. He is a man who has done something in his own countrywhich makes his relatives wish him out of it. So they remit money tohim as long as he stays away. "

If he expected to make Marjorie feel shocked at Pennington by this talehe was quite disappointed. 

"And does Pennington get money for staying away, besides what he helpsyou and gets?" she demanded. "What does he do with it all?"

"I don't suppose it's a great deal, " said Francis reluctantly. 

"Well, all I have to say is, I'm perfectly certain that if anybody'spaying Pennington to stay away from England, they're some horrid kindof person that just is disagreeable, and doesn't know his real worth. Why, Francis, he's helped me learn the ways here, and looked after me, as if he was my mother. He's exactly like somebody's mother. "

Francis could not help smiling a little. Marjorie, when she wanted tobe--sometimes when she did not want to be--was irresistible. 

"But, Marjorie, " he began to explain to her very seriously, "howevermuch he may seem like a mother, he isn't one. He's a man, though he'srather an old one. And he did do things in England so he had to leave. I don't want him to fall in love with you; it would be embarrassing forseveral reasons. "

"But why should he fall in love with me?" she demanded innocently. "Lots of people don't. "

"But, Marjorie, " her husband remonstrated, "they do. Look at Logan, now. No reason on earth would have brought him up here but being inlove with you. You might as well admit it. "

"All I ever did was to listen to him when he talked, " said Marjorie, shrugging one shoulder. She liked what Francis was saying, but shefelt in honor bound to be truthful about such things. "And besidesyou, there was only one other man ever asked me to marry him--I mean, not counting Logan, if you do count him. Oh, yes, and then there wasanother one yet, with a guitar. He always said he proposed to me. Hewrote me a letter all mixed up, about everything in the world; and Iwas awfully busy just then, selling tickets for a church fair of CousinAnna's. I never was any good selling tickets anyhow, " explainedMarjorie, settling herself more nestlingly in her corner of thewindow-seat; "and so when he said somewhere in the letter that anythinghe could ever do for me he would do on the wings of the wind, I wroteback and said yes, he could buy two tickets for the church fair. And, oh, but he was furious! He sent the check for the tickets with themaddest letter you ever saw; and he accused me of refusing him in acold and ignoring manner. And I'd torn up the letter, the way I alwaysdo, and so I couldn't prove anything about it to him. But he didn'tcome to the fair. Ye-es, I suppose that was a proposal. The man oughtto know, shouldn't he?"

Francis was tired; he had a consciousness of having behaved unkindlythat weighed him down and made for gloom. He had come in with Marjoriefor the purpose of delivering an imposing warning. But he couldn'thelp laughing. 

"I suppose so, " he acknowledged. "Never mind, Marjorie, you didn'treally want him, did you?"

She shook her head. 

"Oh, no. Nobody could. Or--wait, somebody must, because I think he'smarried. But he wasn't the kind a girl that cared what she got wanted. "

But Francis went back to Pennington. 

"About Pennington, " he began again. "You don't know how easy it is foryou to let a man think you're encouraging him, when you really aren'tsaying a word or doing a thing, or think you aren't. I want you topromise me you'll be very careful where he's concerned, even cold. "

"Cold!" she said indignantly. "But I'm married! You seem to forgetthat!"

Francis had not forgotten it in the least. He forgot it all too littlefor his own comfort, he might have told her. But he was rebuked. 

"I didn't know you went on the principle that you had to act exactlylike a regular married woman, " he apologized with meekness. 

"I do, " she said shortly. 

He rose and went over to where the banjo lay and brought it back toher. It was growing dusk now in the little cabin. 

"Play for me, and sing, won't you, Marjorie?" he asked abruptly. "Ihaven't heard you for a long time. "

In Marjorie's mind there arose the memory of that boyish, loving littlenote that she had found under the banjo, and for a minute her throatclutched so that she couldn't answer. She had moments of being sointolerably sorry for Francis that it hurt; quite irrational moments, when he seemed to need it not at all. This was one. 

"Yes, " she said, pulling herself together. "That is, if you will takemy word for it that I have no designs on poor old Mr. Pennington. "

"Of course I know you haven't, " he said. "It was the other way aboutthat I was afraid of. "

"His having designs on me?"

She laughed aloud as she began tuning her strings. It did seem likethe funniest thing she had ever heard. The picture of Pennington, girtwith a sack for an apron, with that plump, quaint face of his, andthose kindly, fussy ways, drying cups for her and having designs whilehe did it--it was enough to make even Logan laugh, and _he_ had neverbeen known to be amused by anything that wasn't intellectual humor. 

 "Just a-wearyin' for you, "

she began, in her soft little sympathetic voice, that wasn't much goodfor anything but just this sort of thing, but could pull theheartstrings out of you at it, and sang it through. She went on afterthat without being asked, just because she liked it. She knew wherethe simple chords were in the dark, and she sang everything she wantedto, forgetting finally Francis, and the woods, and everything else inthe world except the music and the old things she was singing. 

When she had finally done, after an hour or so, and laid the banjoacross her lap and leaned back with a little laugh, saying "There! Youmust be tired by this time!" Francis rose with scarcely a thank-you, and walked out of the door. 

"I want a turn in the air before I come to bed, " he said. 

Marjorie said nothing. She was sleepy, as usual--would she never getover being sleepy up here?--and she laid the instrument on the floorand stretched out thoughtlessly on the window-seat, instead of goingoff to bed as she had been intending to do. As for her husband, hewalked across the veranda straight into a group of his listening men. The music had drawn them over, and, regardless of mosquitoes, they weresitting about on the steps, liking the concert. 

"We owe you a vote of thanks for importing that little wife of yours, Ellison, " said Pennington, getting up and stretching himself widely inthe moonlight. "Maybe if I do some more dishes for her, she'll comeand sing for us when she knows it, sometime soon. "

Francis had an irrational wish to hit Pennington. But there was noreason why he should. Pennington's particular kind of flippancy wasmerely a result of his having been, in those far days before he was aremittance man, an Oxford graduate. So was his soft and charminglyinflected voice. But, quite reasonlessly, it was all Francis could doto respond with the politeness which is due to your almostirreplaceable second-in-command on a rush job. His manners once made, he decided that he didn't want the air, after all. He faced about, saying good-night to the risen men, who responded jovially orrespectfully, according to their temperaments, and returned to thecabin where he was, for all they knew, living an idyllic life with thewife he adored and who adored him. 

He went over, drawn in spite of himself, to the window-seat whereMarjorie lay. There was enough moonlight to see her dimly, and hecould tell that she had, all in a minute, fallen asleep. She lookedvery young and tired and childish in the shadows, with her lips justparted, and her hands out and half open at her sides. 

"Marjorie! Marjorie, dear!" he said. "Wake up! It's time you were inbed. "

He spoke to her affectionately, scarcely knowing that he said it. Shewas very tired, and she did not wake till he put his hand on hershoulder. Even then she just moved a little, and turned back to herold position. 

He finally bent and lifted her to a sitting position, but she only layagainst him, heavy still with sleep. 

"Don't want to get up, " she murmured, like a child. So finally he hadto do as he had done the night he brought her home, pick her up bodilyand lay her on her own bed. Her arms fell from his shoulders as hestraightened himself from laying her down. "'Night, " she said, stillsleepily and half-affectionately; and Francis did not kiss hergood-night. But he did want to badly. Francis, unlike Marjorie, wasnot sleeping well these nights. 

But then he was used to his work and she was not used to hers. Hecalled her quite unemotionally next morning, and she rose and wentthrough her routine as usual. All the camp watched its mascotapprehensively, as if she might break--well, not every one, for two ofthem were tough old souls who thought that hard work was what womenwere "fur. " But, aside from these unregenerates, they did more. Firedby Pennington's example of unremitting help, they did everything forher that thought could suggest. They brought her in posies for thetable; they swept out the cabin for her; they dried her dishes indesperate competition; they filled the kerosene stoves so thoroughlythat there was always a dripping trail of oil on the floor, andPennington had to lay down the law about it; they ate what she fed themgladly, and even sometimes forbore to ask for more out of a wish toseem mannerly. 

And Marjorie liked it to the core. The lightening of the work was ahelp, and it made things so that she was not more than healthfullytired, though sometimes she felt that she was more than that; but, being a woodland queen, as Pennington called it, was pleasantest ofall. She came to feel as the time went on, there alone in the clearingwith them, that they were all her property. She mended their clothesfor them, she settled their disputes, she heard their confidences andsaw the pictures of their sweethearts and wives, or, sometimes, photographs of movie queens who were the dream-ideals of these simplesouls. Sometimes she went out to the place where they worked, beforethe work moved too far away for her to reach it in a short time. And, curiously enough, she found that she was not lonely, did not miss NewYork, and--it seemed to her that it was a rather shocking way tofeel--she did not in the least feel a "lack of woman's nursing, ordearth of woman's tears. "

She got along excellently without Lucille, Cousin Anna, and the girlsin the office. And, thinking it over sometimes at twilight, in thoserare moments when there weren't from one to three of the men groupedadoringly around her, and Francis wasn't chaperoning her silently inthe background, she felt that the work was a small price to pay for thepleasantness of the rest of her life there. Always before she had beena cog in the machinery, wherever she had been. At Cousin Anna's shewas a little girl, loved and dominated. With Lucille she was free, butLucille, in compensation, helped herself to the ungrudgingly givenforeground. But here she was lady and mistress, and pet besides. Inshort, the punishment Francis had laid out for her was only apunishment to him. She could see that he felt guilty by spells. Shethought, too, that he had times of being fond of her. How much theymeant she could not tell. But in spite of his warnings she becamebetter and better friends with Pennington, always exactly, at least asfar as she was concerned, as if he were a maiden aunt of great kindnessand experience. Indeed, Pennington, she thought, was what kept herfrom missing girls so. 

He never told her anything about himself. He might or might not havebeen a remittance man; but he mentioned no remittances, at least. Oncehe spoke of his childhood, the kind of childhood she had read sometimesin English children's books, not like her own prim American suburbanmemories of Sunday-school and being sent to school and store, andsometimes playing in her back yard with other little girls. He had hada pony, and brothers and sisters to play with, and a governess, shegathered; and an uncle who was an admiral, and came home once to themin his full uniform, as a treat, so they could see how he looked in it. And there had been a nurse, and near by was a park where the tale wentthat there were goblins. But it all must have been very long ago, shethought, because Pennington looked forty and over. And all his storiesstopped short before he was ten. After that he went to Eton, he toldher, and told her no more. 

She did not ask. She liked him, but, after all, he was not animportant figure in her life. The goal she never forgot was Francis'sadmission that she was an honorable woman; and, underneath that, Francis's missing her terribly when she was through and left. Still, when Pennington would come and demand tea from her of a Sunday, and shewould sit in her little living-room, or out on the veranda, with thequaint yellow tea-set that was a part of the furnishings, and pour itfor him and one or two of the other men, she would like having himabout. He talked as interestingly as Logan, but not as egotistically. She felt as if she were quite a wonderful person when he sat on thestep below her, and surrounded her with a soft deference that wasalmost caressing, but not quite. And in spite of Francis's warningsshe made more and more of a friend of him. 

The explosion came one Sunday afternoon in June. She came out on theveranda, as usual, with her tea-tray, about four, and waited for hercourt. Peggy came over once in awhile on Sundays, too. Logan nevercame. Peggy had never said any more about him since her one outburst, but Marjorie knew that he was ill yet, and being nursed by the O'Maras. This day no Peggy appeared. Indeed, nobody appeared for some time, andMarjorie began to think of putting away the tea-things and consideringthe men's supper. And then, just as she had come to this resolve, Pennington came through the woods. 

He was not sauntering in a seemingly aimless manner, as he usually did. He was walking straight for her, as if she were something he had beenaiming for for hours. And he did not drop at her feet negligently onthe steps, as he usually did, and call her some fanciful name like"Queen of the Woodlands, " or "Lady Marjorie. " He sat erectly on achair across from her, and Marjorie bethought herself that he was verymuch like a curate making a call. The kindly expression was always onhis face, even when he was most deeply in earnest, and he wasapparently in earnest to-day. 

"I stopped the other men from coming, " began Pennington with nopreface. "I wanted to have a long talk with you. I want to tell you astory. "

"I wish you would, " she said, though she had had so many scenes of latethat, without any idea what was coming, a little tremor of terror creptaround her heart. She leaned back in her rustic rocker, there on theveranda, and looked at him in her innocent, friendly fashion. Hepaused a little before he began. 

"Once upon a time, " he began abruptly, "there was a man who had a veryfair start in life. His people saw to it that everything was smoothfor him--too smooth, perhaps. He didn't realize that he could ever bein a position where they wouldn't be able to straighten things out forhim. He was a decent enough chap; weak, perhaps, but kind, at least. He went to school and college, and finally took orders, and was given aliving in a county near where his people lived. Life went along easilyenough for him, and perhaps a bit stupidly. Too stupidly. He gotbored by it. So after a while he gambled. He played the stock-market. Presently he used some money that was not his--that had been intrustedto him by another. He lost that. So he had to give upeverything--home, friends, profession, country--and go and live in astrange country. His people, good always, straightened things out forhim, at a great sacrifice; but they made it a condition that he shouldstay where he was. Time went on, and things were forgotten. And thepeople who had made him promise not to return died. They left him, indying, some money. Not a great deal, but enough to keep himcomfortably. And he didn't know what to do. He was happy, for thefirst time in his life, with a little friend he had found, some onealmost like a daughter, some one who seemed, in humble ways, to needhim to help her in what wasn't a very easy part of her life. So hestayed yet a little longer. And presently he found that he was indanger of something happening. He had never been very good at makinghimself feel as he wished to feel, or at holding his feelings to whatthey should be, let us say. And his feelings for this little daughterwere not quite, he was afraid, like a father's. But he still did notknow what to do, Marjorie. She would never care, and there werereasons why he did not want or expect her to. It was only that hewondered which was right--which he ought to do. "

Pennington stopped. 

Marjorie colored up. 

"What--what do you mean? Why--why do you tell me about it?"

"Because, " said Pennington, "I would like to know what you think thatman ought to do. Ought he to go back home, against his people's wish, but where he belongs, and try to pick up the rest of his life there, ordo you think that the need of him over here is enough to counterbalancethe danger he runs? You see, it's rather a problem. "

Marjorie was a perfectly intelligent girl. She knew very well thatPennington was, at last, telling her the outlines of his own pitifulstory. And he was leaving the decision in her hands. 

She sat quietly for awhile, and tried to think. It was hard to think, because there was a queer, hazy feeling in her head, and her hands werehot. She had felt unusually excited and energetic and gay earlier inthe day, but that was all gone, and only the hazy feeling left. Shedid not want to move, or, particularly, to speak. She wondered if atrip she had made that afternoon before to a little swampy place, whereshe had sat and strung berries for an hour, had been bad for her. 

But there was Pennington--he looked very large, suddenly, and thenseemed to fade away far off for a minute, and have to be focused withan effort--and he had to be answered. 

"I think, " she said hesitatingly, "that he ought to do what seemed tohim right, without thinking of his feelings, or--or any one else's. "

"But that's just the trouble. He couldn't see which _was_ right. "

Marjorie tried to focus harder than ever. She wanted to be unselfish, and tell him the thing that was right to do, at any cost--though shehad not realized how much Pennington's help and society had been toher. She felt a terror at the idea of his going, the more because shefelt ill. But that didn't count--that mustn't count. You have noright to let a man stay where he may fall in love with you, merelybecause you need him for a maiden aunt or something of the sort. Andthat was the ultimate and entire extent of her affection for him, strong though it had come to be. 

"I think--I think that man had better go back to the place where he hadreally belonged at first, " she said in a low voice. "No matter howmuch the girl missed him, or needed him, she had no right to want himto be hurt by staying near her. "

"You really think that?" he said. 

"Yes, " she answered. And then incoherently, "Oh, Mr. Pennington, I dowant to be good!"

She meant that she had done enough wrong, in acting as she had towardFrancis in the first place. She felt now, very strongly, that all thetrouble had come from her cowardice when Francis came home. She shouldhave shut her teeth and gone through the thing, no matter what herpersonal feelings had been at first. It would all have come out rightthen. She knew now that she and Francis, the plunge once taken, couldhave stood each other. And she would have kept her faith. She hadlearned the meaning of honor. 

"You are good, " said Pennington in a moved tone. "Then--I have myanswer. Yes--I'll go back. "

She leaned her heavy head on the chair-back again. He seemed once moresuddenly remote. 

"I--I wish you weren't going, " she said, only half conscious of whatshe said. 

He leaned forward, suddenly moved, and caught her hand hard. Still inthat dream, she felt him kiss it. She did not care. And then, stillin the dream, Francis's quick tread up the steps, and his sharp voice--

"And I believed in you!"

CHAPTER XI

She looked at him in a blind sort of way. His words made only a hazyimpression; but neither of the men could know that. 

"Believed in me?" she echoed, smiling faintly. "Why, did you?"

"Yes, " said Francis with a concentrated fury that reached even herconfused senses. "But I never will again! I thought--I was beginningto think--you were the sort of woman you said. But you're just aflirt. Any man is better than the one you're married to. "

"I--I think you want me to go, " she said, trying to see him. She couldsee two Francises, as a matter of fact, neither of them clearly. 

"Yes, I do. Either of these men you've befooled can see you on yourway. And I'll start divorce proceedings, or you may, immediately. "

He said more than that; but that was all she could get. The words hurther, in spite of their lack of meaning. Francis hated her; he thoughtshe was a bad girl, who never kept her word. And she wasn't. 

"I--I want to be good, " she said aimlessly, as she had said toPennington a little earlier. "I"--she lost the thread again--"I'll go. "

She rose, dropping the cup and saucer on her knee, and not stopping topick them up. She caught hold of the doorpost to carry her in, anddropped down on a seat inside. It was not that she was weak, but shefelt giddy. She wondered again if it was the swamp. Probably. Shefinally made her way back to her own room, mixed herself some spiritsof ammonia and took it, and sat down to pull herself together. Throughthe wooden partition she could hear the furious voices of the men onthe porch outside. She wondered if Francis would say more dreadfulthings to her while he took her over in the side-car. She hoped not. 

Presently the dizziness departed for a few minutes, and she tried topack. She did not seem able to manage it. If she was allowed to stayat the Lodge with the O'Maras, she could send Peggy over to gather upher things. Yes, that would be the best way to do. 

She pinned on her hat and drew her cloak around her, just as she was, and came out. Pennington and Francis were standing up, facing her, andhaving a quarrel which might last some time. 

"I'm ready, " she said weakly. 

She knew she should have stood up there, and told Francis how unkindand unjust and bad-tempered and jealous he was, and defend herself fromhis accusations. But she was too tired to do it; and besides, wordsseemed so far away, and feelings seemed far away, too. Francis and thework at the cabin and Pennington, with his kind, plump, rueful face, and even the O'Maras and Logan, seemed suddenly unreal and of littleaccount. The only thing that really mattered was a chance to gosomewhere and lie down and sleep. Perhaps she could lean back a littlein the side-car as he took her over. 

Francis broke off short in what he was saying, and went without lookingat her toward the place where he kept his motor-cycle. Perhaps hethought that it did not matter, now, whether he left her withPennington or not. 

Pennington, for his part, turned around--he had been standing so thathis back was toward her--and began to speak. Marjorie thought he wassaying something to the effect that he was very sorry that he had madethis trouble for her, and that he had been trying to explain; andthought he could make Francis hear reason when he had cooled off. 

"It doesn't really matter, " she said wearily. "Only tell him to hurry, because I'm--so--sleepy. "

She sank into the chair where she had been sitting before Francisappeared, and leaned back and shut her eyes. Pennington, with aconcerned look on his face, came nearer her at that, and looked down ather, reaching down to feel her pulse. She moved her hand feebly away. 

"Francis--wouldn't like it, " she said; and that was the last thing sheremembered distinctly, though afterwards when she tried she seemed torecall hearing Pennington, very far off in the distance, callingperemptorily, "Ellison! Ellison! Come here at once!"

She wondered faintly why Pennington should want to hurry him up. Itwas about this time that she quietly slipped sidewise from her chair, and was in a little heap on the veranda before he could turn and catchher, or Francis could respond to the summons. 

"This is what you've done, " was what Pennington said quietly whenFrancis reappeared. He did not offer to touch Marjorie or pick her up. 

Francis flung himself down on his knees beside his wife. Then helooked up at Pennington, with a last shade of suspicion in his eyes. 

"What do you think it is?" he asked. "Is she really fainting?"

"You young fool, no!" said Pennington. "She's ill. "

"Ill!" said Francis, and gathered her up and laid her on the settee atthe other end of the porch. "What's the matter, do you think? Is itserious?"

His words were quiet enough, but there was a note of anguish in hisvoice which made Pennington sorry for him in spite of himself. But hedid not show much mercy. 

"It is probably overwork, " he said. "We've all done what we could tospare her, but a child like this shouldn't be put at drudgery, even tosatisfy the most jealous or selfish man. You've had a china cup, mylad, and you've used it as if it was tin. And it's broken, that's all. "

Francis looked down at Marjorie, holding her head in his arms. It layback limply. Her eyes were half open, and her heart, as he put hishand over it, was galloping. Her cheeks were beginning to be scarlet, and her hand, when he reached down and touched it, burned. He lookedup at Pennington with an unconscious appeal, unmindful of the olderman's harsh words. 

"Do you think she'll die?" he asked. 

"I have no way of knowing. If she does, you have the consolation ofknowing that you've done what you could toward it. "

"Oh, my God, don't, Pennington!" cried out Francis, clutching Marjorietighter unconsciously. "It's as true as gospel. But let up now. Getsomebody. Do something, for heaven's sake! You know about medicine alittle, don't you?"

"Take her inside and put her to bed, " Pennington commanded shortly. "I'll take your motor-cycle and go for Mother O'Mara. I can get adoctor from there by to-morrow, perhaps. "

Francis gathered the limp little body up again without a word. Only heturned at the door for a last appeal. 

"Can't you tell at all what it is?"

"Fever, I think. She's caught malarial fever, perhaps. She wouldn'thave done if she'd been stronger. Take her in. "

So Francis carried his wife over the threshold, into the little brownroom he had decked for her so long ago, and laid her down again. Herhead fell back on the pillow, and her hands lay as he dropped them. Hestood back and looked at her, a double terror in his heart. She wouldnever love him again. How could she? And she would die--surely shewould die, and he had killed her. 

"I'm--going, " she said very faintly, as a sleep-talker speaks. She wasnot conscious of what she said, but it was the last straw for Francis. He had not slept nor eaten lately, and he had worked double time allday to keep his mind from the state of things, ever since he hadbrought her back. So perhaps it was not altogether inexcusable that heflung himself on the floor by the bedside and broke down. 

He was aroused after awhile by the touch of Marjorie's hand. He liftedhis head, thinking she had come to and touched him knowingly. But hesaw that it was only that she was tossing a little, with therestlessness of the fever, and his heart went down again. 

He pulled himself up from the bedside, and went doggedly at his work ofundressing her and putting her to bed. 

She was as easy to handle as a child; and once or twice, when he had tolift or turn her in the process of undressing, he could feel how lightshe was, and that she was thinner. She had always been a little thing, but the long weeks of work had made her almost too thin--not too thinfor her own tastes, because, like all the rest of the women of thepresent, she liked it; but thin enough to give Francis a fresh pang ofremorse. He felt like a slave-driver. 

When he had finished his task, he stood back, and wondered if there wasanything else he could do before Pennington came back with Mrs. O'Mara, and with or without a doctor. He felt helpless, and as if he had tostand there and watch her die. He got water and tried to make herdrink it--ineffectually--he filled a hot water bottle and brought itin, and then thought better of it. She had a fever already. Then hethought of bathing her in cold water; but he could not bring himself todo that. He had already done enough that she would hate him for, inthe way of undressing her. He must never tell her he had donethat. . . . But she would hate him anyway. So he ended by sittingmiserably down on the floor beside her, and waiting the interminablehours that the time seemed until the others returned. 

He had expected Mrs. O'Mara to reproach him, as Pennington had, asbeing the person to blame for Marjorie's state. But the dear soul, comforting as always, said nothing of the sort. She said very littleof any sort, indeed; she merely laid off the bonnet and cloak she hadcome in, and went straight at her work of looking after Marjorie. Onlyon her way she stopped to give Francis a comforting pat on the shoulder. 

"It's not so bad but it might be worse, " she said. "Anybody might gitthem fevers without a stroke of work done. An' she's young an' strong. "

Francis looked up at her in mute gratitude from where he sat. 

"An' now clear out, lie down and rest, down on the couch or annywhereye like, till I see what's to be done to this girl, " she went on. 

He went out without a word, and sat down on the window-seat, where thebanjo lay, still, and picked it up mechanically. He could seeMarjorie, now, with it in her hands, singing to it for the men--or, sometimes, just for him. How gay she had been through everything, andhow plucky, and how sweet! And just because she was gay he had thoughtshe was selfish and fickle, and didn't care. And because she had neversaid anything about how hard the work was, he had thought--he couldforgive himself even less for this--that it wasn't hard. Looking back, he could see not one excuse for himself except in his carrying her off. That might have worked all right, if he could have kept his temper. Helet his mind stray back over what might have been; suppose he hadaccepted Logan's following her up here as just what it was--the whim ofa man in love with Marjorie. Suppose he had believed that Penningtoncould kiss his wife's hand without meaning any harm; suppose, in fine, that he had believed in Marjorie's desire and intention to do right, even if she had been a coward for a few minutes to begin with?

Then--why, then--

By this time, perhaps, he could have won her back. If he had not laiddown the law to her--if he had not put her to the test. What businesshad a man in love to make terms, anyhow? It was for him to accept whatterms Marjorie had chosen to make for him. 

He flung himself down on his knees by the window-seat, heedless of anyone who might come or go. 

"Oh, God, " prayed Francis passionately, as he did everything. "Give meanother chance! Let her get well, and give me one little chance thento have her forgive me! I don't care what else happens if that onlydoes!"

He did not know how long he knelt there, praying with such intensitythat he sprang aside when some one touched him on the shoulder. 

"She's goin' to be all right in the long run, " said Mrs. O'Mara. "Igev' her a wee drink o' water, an' she kem to herself fur a minute. An' I says, 'Me dear, where did ye git yer fever?' An' she says, 'Theswamp, I think. Don't I have to travel to-day? I'm in bed. ' An' Isays, 'Not to-day nor anny day till ye want, me child, ' and she turnsover an' snuggles down like a lamb. An' I've sponged her off with coolwater, an' she feels better, though she's off agin, an' I'm afraid thefever'll be runnin' up on us before the doctor can git here. "

"You mean she isn't sensible now?" demanded Francis, whose eyes hadlighted up with hope when she began to speak. 

"Well, not so's ye could talk to her. An' ye might excite her. Themthey loves does often. "

"Then I wouldn't, " said Francis recklessly. "Oh, Mother O'Mara, I'vebeen such a brute----"

"Hush, hush now, don't ye be tellin' me. Sure we're all brutes wanstin awhile. Ye feel that way because the child's sick. Now go out andwatch fer the doctor, or do annything else that'll amuse ye. "

He obeyed her as if he were a little boy. He was so miserable that hewould have done what any one told him just then--if Logan, even, withhis cane and his superciliousness, had given him a direction he wouldprobably have obeyed it blindly. 

Mrs. O'Mara went back to the sick-room. How much she knew of thesituation she never told. But Peggy was not a secretive person, andPeggy had arrived at a point with Logan where he told her a good deal, if she coaxed. They never got it out of the old lady, at any rate. 

Marjorie was quieter, but still not herself. Mrs. O'Mara, who was anexperienced nurse, did not like the way she had collapsed socompletely. She was afraid it was going to be a hard illness, and sheknew Francis was breaking his heart over it. 

"Still it may be a blessin' in a way, " she said half aloud. "You nevercan tell in this world o' grief and danger. I wonder has she peoplebesides Mr. Francis. They've never either of them said. "

The doctor came and went, and Monday morning dawned, when Francis hadto go to work whether or no. And Pennington quietly took overMarjorie's duties again, and the men tiptoed up to the cabin where shelay, and asked about her anxiously, and young Peggy came over and tookturns with her mother in the nursing, and Logan, much more robust andtanned than he had been in several years of New York life in heatedapartments, came with her and sat on the porch waiting till she cameout; and Francis saw him there, and thought nothing of it except thathe was grateful to him for being interested in Marjorie. 

He realized now that it was all he need ever have thought. But herealized so many things now, when it might be too late!

The days went on relentlessly. Finally they decided to send for hercousin, the only relative she had. Francis was a little doubtful as tothe wisdom of this, for he knew that Marjorie had never been very happywith her cousin, but it was one of those things which seem to have tobe done. And just as they had come to this resolution; a resolutionwhich felt to Francis like giving up all hope, Marjorie took a littleturn for the better. 

It was not much to see. She was a little quieter, that was all, andthe nursing did not have to be so intensive. Mrs. O'Mara and Peggy didnot feel that they had to sit with her all the time; there were periodswhen she was left alone. Francis felt more bitterly than anything elsethat he had to go on with his work, instead of staying in the houseevery moment, but it was better for him. He would have driven theO'Maras mad, they told him frankly, walking up and down, lookingrepentant. Peggy was not quite softened to him yet; but the olderwoman was so sorry for him that any feelings she may have had about theway he had behaved were swallowed up in sympathy. 

"And it isn't as if he weren't gettin' his comeuppance, Peg, " shereminded her intolerant young daughter. "Sure annything he made hersuffer he's payin' for twice over and again to that. "

"And a very good thing, too, " retorted Peggy, who was just coming offduty, and casting an eye toward the window to see where Logan was. Hewas exactly where she wished, waiting with what, for him, waseagerness, to go off through the woods with her. 

"I suppose, now ye've a man trailin' ye, there's nothin' ye don'tknow, " said her mother. "And him a heretic, if not a heathen itself. I've only to say to ye, keep yer own steps clean, Peggy. "

"He is a heathen--he doesn't believe a blessed thing; he said sohimself!" said Peggy with what sounded like triumph. "The more reasonfor me to convert him, poor dear! Empty things are easier filled thanfull ones. If he was like them in there, with a religion of his own, Iwouldn't have a show. But as it is, I have my hopes. "

"Oh, it's converting him you are! Tell that to the pigs!" said hermother scornfully. "And now go on; I suppose you're taking a prayerbook and a rosary along with you in that picnic basket. "

"No, " said Peggy reluctantly. "I'm softening his heart first. "

She had the grace to giggle a little as she said it, and the O'Marasense of humor rode triumphant over both of them then, and they parted, laughing. Francis, entering on one of his frequent flying trips fromwork to see how Marjorie was, felt as if they were heartless. 

Mrs. O'Mara, at the sight of his tired, unhappy young face, sobereddown with one of her quick Irish transitions. 

"Ah, sure now it's the best of news. The doctor's been, and he saysshe's better. So it won't be necessary to send after the old aunt orcousin or whatever, that ye say she wasn't crazy over. Come in an' seeher. "

Francis, a new hope in his heart, tiptoed into the little brown bedroomwhere Marjorie lay. It was too much to hope that she would know him. She had been either delirious or asleep--under narcotics--through thedays of her fever. And once or twice when she had spoken rationally, it had never been Francis who had happened to be near at the time. 

She lay quite quietly, with her eyes shut, and her long lashes trailingon her cheeks. When Francis came in she opened her eyes as if it was atrouble to make that much effort. She was very weak. But she lookedat him intelligently, and even lifted one hand a little from thecoverlet, as if she wanted to be polite and welcome him. He had beenwarned not to make any fuss or say anything exciting, if this shouldcome; so he only sat down across from her and tried to speak naturally. 

"Do you know me, Marjorie?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound asit always sounded. But it was a little hoarse. 

She spoke, in a thread of a voice, that yet had a little mockery in it. She seemed to have taken things up where she dropped them. 

"Yes, thank you. You're my sort of husband. This--this is really toobad of me, Francis. But, anyway, it was your swamp!"

Just the old, mocking, smiling Marjorie, or her shadow. But it did notmake him angry now; it seemed so piteous that he should have broughther to this. The swamp faded to nothingness as a cause of her illnesswhen he compared it to his own behavior. 

"Marjorie, " he asked, very gently so as not to disturb her, "would itbe too exciting if I talked to you a little bit about things, and toldyou how sorry I was?"

"Why--no, " she said weakly, shutting her eyes. 

"I was wrong, from start to finish, " he said impetuously. "I'm sorry. I want you to forgive me. "

"Why, certainly, " she said, so indifferently that his heart sank. Itdid not occur to him that he had never said that he cared for her atall. 

"Is there anything I could get you?" he asked futilely as he felt. 

"I'd like to see Mr. Pennington. He was kind to me. "

"Marjorie, Marjorie, won't you ever forgive me for the way I acted?"

"Oh, yes, " she said, lying with shut eyes, so quiet that her lipsscarcely moved when she talked. "I said so. But you haven't beenkind. It's like--don't you know, when you get a little dog used tobeing struck it gets so it cowers when you speak to it, no matter ifyou aren't going to strike it that time. I don't want to be hurt anymore. I don't love Pennington--he's too funny-looking, and awfullyold. But he was kind--he never hurt my feelings. . . . "

She spoke without much inflection, and using as few words as she could. When she had finished she still lay there, as silent and out ofFrancis's reach as if she were dead. He tiptoed out with a sickfeeling that everything was over, which he had never had before. Shewas so remote. She cared so little about anything. 

He went back to work, and told Pennington that Marjorie wanted to seehim. When the day was over he returned to the cabin again, and foundMrs. O'Mara on duty once more. Pennington sat by Marjorie, holding herhand in his, and speaking to her occasionally. Francis looked at him, and spoke to him courteously. Pennington smiled at him, and stayedwhere he was. Marjorie, Mrs. O'Mara said, seemed to cling to him, andhis presence did her good. And--she broke it as gently as shecould--though the patient was on the road to getting well now, she wasdisturbed by his coming in and out. She seemed afraid of him. 

Francis took it very quietly. After that he only came to the bedroomdoor to ask, and stepped as softly as he could, so that she would noteven know he had been there. And time went on, and she got better, andpresently could be dressed in soft, loose, fluffy things, and lie outon the veranda during the warmest part of the day, and see people for alittle while each. It was about this time that Francis went to sleepat the bunk-house. 

"Why doesn't Francis ever come to see me?" she asked finally. "Thereare a great many things I want to know about. "

Pennington, whom she had asked, told her gently. 

"We thought--the physician thought--that he upset you a little when youwere beginning to be better. He is staying away on purpose. Would youlike to see him?"

"Yes, I think I would, " she said. "Can Peggy come talk to me?"

Peggy could, of course. She came dashing up, from some sylvan nookwhere she had been secluded, presumably with Logan, fell on Marjoriewith hearty good-will and many kisses, and demanded to know what shecould do. 

"I--I want to see Francis and talk to him about a lot of things, " saidMarjorie, "and I thought perhaps if you'd get me a mirror and a littlebit of powder, and----"

"Say no more!" said Peggy. "I know what you want as well as if you'dtold me all. I'll be out in a minute with everything in the world. "

She returned with her arms full of toilet things, and for fifteenminutes helped Marjorie look pretty. She finished by brushing out herhair and arranging it loosely in curls, with a big ribbon securing it, like Mary Pickford or one of her rivals. She touched Marjorie's facewith a little perfume to flush it, and draped her picturesquely againstthe back of the long chair, with a silk shawl over her instead of thesteamer rug which Mrs. O'Mara, less artistic than utilitarian, hadprovided. 

"There, " she said, "you look like a doll, or an angel, or anything elseout of a storybook. Now I'll get Francis. "

CHAPTER XII

Marjorie waited, with a quietness which was only outward, for Francis. She did not even know whether he would come; she had only seen himonce; he had said he was sorry for the way he had acted, and asked herto forgive him, but then it wasn't the first time he had done that. 

"It's getting to be just a little morning custom of his, " said Marjorieto herself, trying to laugh. But she was in earnest about seeing him. Away down deep in her she was not quite sure why she wanted to. Shewas not angry with him--she seemed to herself past that. Of course, there were things to arrange. 

It seemed like a sorry ending to it all. She had meant to ridetriumphantly through the work, and walk off leaving a crushed Francisbehind her; and make such a success of something back in New York thathe would spend years being very, very sorry. . . . Well, he did seemsorry. But it was only because he felt guilty about her being ill, not, so far as she could tell, because he cared a bit about her anymore. And it really was not his fault, her illness. She had been welland happy, and even liked the work. The doctor had said that themiasma in the swamp, and her sitting by it for hours, making a wreathof flowers like a small girl, were alone responsible. And even if hewas softening the blow, she had been tired and worried before she cameup; the housework at the cabin wouldn't have been enough. She musttell Francis so. He _did_ take things so hard. 

When he came, led by Peggy, neither of them seemed to know what to sayfor a little while. Francis sat down by her and spoke constrainedly, and then merely stared and stared. 

"Well, what is it then?" demanded Peggy, who was hovering about, and, unlike the Ellisons, seemed to have no emotions to disturb her. "Hasshe two heads, or had you forgotten her looks entirely?"

"I think I must have forgotten her looks entirely, " he answered slowly, never taking his eyes off Marjorie. "You know--well, I hadn't seenyou, Marjorie, for some time. But you always were beautiful. "

Marjorie turned pink up to the ribbon bow that sat out like a littlegirl's at one temple. 

"Was I?" was all she found to say. 

"Yes, " he said, and said no more. 

At this juncture Peggy rose. 

"Well, I'm sorry not to stay here and help you carry on this fluentconversation, " she said, tossing her head. "But I have an engagementelsewhere. If you want me ring the bell. "

This was more or less metaphorical--probably a quotation fromThackeray--because there was no bell in sight. But at any rate Peggyleft with one of her goddess-like sweeps, and was to be heardthereafter calling Mr. Logan with a good-will. Presently the others, sitting silently, heard his voice answer gaily, and then no more. Theyhad met and were off together as usual. 

"You see, " said Marjorie, "he really didn't care for me. I think heand Peggy will marry each other one of these days, even if she is onlysixteen. "

"She will get over being sixteen, of course, " said Francis, still inthe preoccupied voice. "I suppose it's her superb vitality thatattracts him. She is actually making him almost human. "

Marjorie smiled faintly at that. 

"You don't like him much, do you?" she said. 

"Do you remember, in your letters, how you always called him 'yourfriend with the fits?'"

"Well, wasn't he?" said Francis defensively. 

"Well, I don't think it was fits, " she answered, balancing her ideas asif they had met only to discuss Logan; "it was some sort of a nervousseizure. At any rate, Peggy nursed him through one of the attacks, soif she does marry him she knows the worst. But maybe they won't bemarried. I remember, now, he told me once that an emotion to be reallyconvincing must be only touched lightly and foregone. "

"That man certainly talks a lot of rot, " said Francis. It was curioushow, whenever they were together, they fell into intimateconversation--even if everything in the world had been happening theminute before. The thought came to Marjorie. "Now, my emotions, "Francis went on, "have certainly been too darn convincing for comfortfor the last year. If I could have touched any of them lightly andforegone them I'd have been so proud you couldn't see me for dust. Butthey weren't that kind. . . . Marjorie, I've been through hell thislast while that you've been sick. "

"I'm sorry, " she said. It gave her the opening she had been lookingfor. "But that partly was what I sent for you to talk about. Nothell--I mean--well, our affairs. I'm well enough now to be quite quietand calm about them, and I think you are, too. That is, " she added, half laughing, "if you could ever be quiet and calm about anything. What I've seen of you has either been when you've been repressingyourself so hard that I could see the emotions bubble underneath, orwhen you'd stopped repressing, and were telling me what you reallythought of me. "

"Oh, don't!" he said, wincing. 

"Well, why not, Francis? You see, it's sort of as if we were both deadnow, and talking things over calmly on the golden shore. . . . Isn'tit lovely here! Oh, you don't know how nice it is to be getting well!"

"And I made you go through all that, " he said chokingly, reaching outinstinctively for one of the thin little hands that lay contentedlyoutside the silk shawl, and then pulling back again. 

Marjorie looked at him consideringly. She couldn't help thinking, fora moment, how lovely this would be if it wasn't a case of the goldenshore; if Francis and she hadn't messed things up so; if they had comeup here because they loved each other, and trusted each other to makehappiness; and if Francis, instead of taking his hand back that way, had held hers as if he had the right to. And she remembered suddenlytheir marriage night. He had flung himself down beside her and wrappedher in his arms, and she had not quite liked it; she had shrunk awayfrom him. She was so weak now, and it felt a little lonely--if he puthis arms around her now she thought she would like it. But then shewas ill yet, and emotional; probably it was the same feeling that mademen propose to their nurses when they were convalescing. A nurse hadtold her about it once, and added that it was considered very unethicalto take a man up on that sort of a proposal. That was it--you justwanted somebody to be kind to you. 

"Perhaps if I had a cat, " said Marjorie inadvertently, aloud. 

"Would you like one?" demanded Francis. "I'll get it this afternoon. "

"Yes, I guess so, " she answered, coloring again. "But what made youthink of a cat?"

"Oh, I just did, " she answered untruthfully. "You see--you see, I'mnot strong yet, and my mind rambled around in an inconsequent sort ofway. It just happened on cats. But, Francis, you mustn't reproachyourself. I know you are feeling altogether too badly about what youdid. But you mustn't. That's just the way you're made. You haven'tnice tame emotions, and in a way you're better so. Why, people likeyou, all energy and force and attraction, get so much farther in life. You're going to be a wonderful success, I know, just because you are sointense. You meant all right. I know lots of girls who would havebeen awfully flattered at your being so jealous. They'd have thoughtit meant you were in love with them terribly. "

"They'd have thought right, " he said. 

She looked at him--she had been talking with her eyes on a green treeover in the distance. His head was bowed, and his hands clenched onhis knees, and he had spoken again in the muttering voice he had begunwith. 

"I suppose you were, " she said with a little wistful note in her voicethat neither of them knew was there. "But never mind; I want to talknow about what we are both to do next. If you are really feeling asbadly as you say about my being sick, I don't suppose you mind how longI take to get well. I'm afraid it will be quite a little while longer. "

He started to speak, but she held up one hand and stopped him. 

"And after that I'll go back to Lucille, if Billy isn't home. "

"He is, " said Francis. "He came over in one of the transports in July, while you were ill. That was the only reason I didn't drag Lucille uphere. "

"Where are they?" demanded Marjorie a little blankly. But after allshe should have expected this. 

"In the flat you and Lucille had. Lucille likes it. "

"How can she?" sighed Marjorie. "Well, she's never tried this. . . . I wonder what I'd better do? I think I heard something about a placewhere they have flats just for business women. Perhaps Billy couldarrange for me to get one before they're all gone. He always lovedattending to things like that for people. I can't go back to CousinAnna. I've been through too much. Why, you mayn't think it, but I'mgrown up, Francis! I'm about twenty years older than that foolishlittle girl you married. I--I wonder I haven't wrinkles and a littlewisp of fuzzy gray hair!" she added, trying to smile. 

"Don't!" said Francis again, looking at her childish face, with itsshowers of loose curls, that was trying to be so brave. He dropped hiseyes again to the clenched hands that were tensed, one on either knee. "I was foolish and young, too, then, " he added. "I think I'm older, too. "

"Yes . . . It was a mistake, " she said in a far-off voice. 

"I wish it hadn't been, " he said. 

"Why, I was thinking that, too!" she said. "Isn't it a pity that weweren't as old then as we are now! Responsible, I mean, and wanting asmuch to do right things. That was one thing about it all. I want todo right more than anything else these days; and I think you do, too. And it wasn't in style then--do you remember our talking it over uphere once, when we were having a little friendly spat? But Isuppose----"

"I suppose you would never have married me if you'd been so old andwise, " he said. 

She considered. 

"But neither would you have, " she objected. 

Francis looked up at her suddenly, flashingly. "You know better, " heburst out. "You know I'd marry you over again if I were forty yearsold, and as wise as Solomon. The kind of love I had for you isn't thekind that gets changed. "

Marjorie lay for a minute silently. Then she looked at himincredulously. 

"But you said----" she began very softly. 

"I said things that I ought to be horsewhipped for. I loved you somuch that I was jealous. I do think I've learned a little better. Why, if you wanted to talk to some other man now, even if I knew youloved him madly, if it would make you happier I think I'd get him foryou. . . . No. No, I don't believe I could. I want you too muchmyself. But--I've learned a better kind of love, at least, than thekind that only wants to make you miserable. I _did_ get Pennington foryou when you were so ill, and wanted him instead of me. Count that tome for righteousness, Marge, when you think about me back there in thecity. "

"Then--you mean--that you love me just as much as ever?"

She lay there, wide-eyed, flushed and unbelieving. 

"As much? A thousand times more--you know it. Good heavens, how couldany one live in the house with you and not care more and more for youall the time?"

"But, then, why did you----"

"Because I was a brute. I've told you that. And because it made meunhappier and unhappier to see you drifting away from me, and then, every time I could have done anything to draw you a little closer I'dlash out and send you farther away with my selfishness and jealousy. Ididn't know it was any surprise to you. It's been the one thing you'veknown from the beginning----"

She shook her head. 

"Every time you lost your temper you said you'd stopped loving me. Andthat nobody could love the bad girl I was, to flirt and deceive you----"

"I've no excuse. I haven't even the nerve to ask you to try it alittle longer. But believe this, Marjorie; the very hardest thing youcould ask me to do----"

She laughed a little, starry-eyed, "If I asked you to go and do the cooking and cleaning for your belovedmen, that you made me do?" she asked whimsically. 

He nodded matter-of-coursely. 

"It would mean Pennington doing my directing, and I don't think he's upto it; he's a fine second in command, but he can't plan. Yes, I'd doit in a minute, though it would probably mean the job I'm making myreputation on going smash. Do you want me to? If the whole thing wentto the devil it would be a small price to pay for getting even anotherhalf-chance to make good with you. May I, Marjorie? Say I may!"

He was bending forward, alert and passionate, as if it were a chance toown the world that he was begging for. She told him so. 

"It is--my world. I mean it, Marjorie. I don't deserve it, and Idon't see how you can trust me, but let me do that. Or anything. Idon't care how hard or how ridiculous, if it would mean that some day Icould come back to you and you'd consider--just consider--being mywife. "

"But, Francis! But, Francis, I don't want you to be ridiculous! Idon't want you to fall down on your work. I don't want you to doanything----"

"I know you don't. That's the worst of it. And it's coming to me. "

She was silent for a little while. 

"It hadn't occurred to you, then, that perhaps--perhaps living in thehouse with you might have made me--well, a little fonder of you?"

She did not know what she had expected him to do when she said that. Anything but what he did do--sit perfectly still and unbelieving, andlook as if she had stabbed him. 

"No, " he said finally. "That couldn't happen. Don't talk to me thatway, Marjorie. It's cruel. Not that you haven't the right to becruel. "

It was Marjorie's time of triumph, that she had planned for so long, inthose days when the work was hard and things were lonely sometimes. But she did not take it. She only put out one shy hand, for it was alittle hard for her to go on talking, she was getting so tired, andsaid timidly:

"But it is true, Francis. I--I am fond of you. And if there'sanything to forgive, I have. You know you can't be so dreadfully angrywith people when--when you like them. You--why, you don't have to waitand have tests. I'll stay with you now, if you want me. "

He stared at her a little longer, still incredulous. Then with aninarticulate cry he was down on his knees beside her long chair, and hehad her in his arms, just as he had held her the night before he wentaway, just after they were married. No, not just the same; for thoughhe held her as closely and as tenderly, there was something of fearstill in the way he kept his arms about her; as if he did not reallythink it was true. He knelt there for a long time, and neither of themmoved. He did not call her affectionate names; he only kept repeating, "Marjorie! Marjorie! Marjorie!" over and over again, as if her namewould keep her close to him, and hold her real. 

She laughed a little again presently. 

"It's really so, you know, Francis. "

"I don't believe it in the least!" said Francis, in a more assertivevoice than he had used yet. He laughed, too. She looked at the dark, vivid face so near hers, and so changed from what it had been fiveminutes before. 

"Well, you did take a lot of convincing!" she said demurely. "I feltso bold----"

"Darling, " said Francis, kissing her parenthetically, "do you think itwould be too much for you if you sat on my knees a little while? Ican't get at half enough of you where you are. And doctors say thatbeing too long in one position is very bad for invalids. "

"You might try, " said Marjorie docilely; "though, honestly, Francis, Idon't feel any more like an invalid than you do. I feel perfectly welland strong--let me see if I can stand up!"

He really shouldn't--Mrs. O'Mara told him that severely two hoursafterwards--but at that particular moment he would have done anythingin the world Marjorie requested. He lifted her to a standing positionvery carefully, and held her supported while she tried how she feltbeing really on her feet again. It was the first time. Until now, Pennington had carried her in and out, while Francis felt a deadly envyin his heart. 

"See, I'm all well!" she said triumphantly, looking exactly, as he toldher, like a doll, with her lacy draperies and her shoulder-lengthcurls, and her slim arms thrown out to balance herself. He let herstand there a minute or so, and then pulled her gently over and heldher for a while. 

At least, they thought it was a while. It was much more like twohours; there was so much to talk over, and explain, and arrange forgenerally. They decided to stay just where they were, for a littlewhile at least, after Francis's work was done. Marjorie was to getstrong as quickly as possible, and they were both, after their longpractice at being unhappy, to try to be as happy as possible. And thevery first time that Francis was jealous, or objected to any onekissing her hand or traveling from New York to take her away from acruel husband, Marjorie was to leave him forever. This was hissuggestion. 

"But I don't think I would, " said Marjorie thoughtfully, lifting herhead a little from his shoulder. "I never did, did I, no matter whatyou did to me? You couldn't even make me go when you sent me--Ipreferred malarial fever. "

Francis said nothing to that, except to suddenly tighten his arms abouther. He was not yet at the point where he could make a joke of herillness. She had been too near the Valley of the Shadow for that. 

So they were still sitting very comfortably together, discussing theirmutual life--they had planned as far as the tenth year of theirmarriage--when Peggy descended upon them again. 

Marjorie flushed and made a faint effort to escape, but Francis satimmovably, exactly as if Peggy were not there at all. 

"Oh!" said Peggy. 

"We've made up, " said Francis coolly. 

"Then I suppose you won't be wanting me on the premises, " said Peggy, making a dive for the door. 

"I would be delighted if there was a whole procession of you, like afrieze, " said Francis, "walking by and seeing how happy I am. "

"Oh, but I wouldn't!" protested Marjorie. "Do let me get up and berespectable, Francis. There _will_ be a procession going bypresently--you know the men all come and ask how I am every day. "

At that reluctantly he did put her back in her chair, where she lay fora little longer, starry-eyed and quite unlike an invalid. Peggy wentinside, judging that in spite of Francis's protests they would beperfectly happy alone; and, besides, she wanted to tell her mother. The two on the veranda stayed where they were. 

"But what about the cooking?" demanded Marjorie presently. 

"It's been all right while you were sick. We are going to get throughsooner than I thought. "

"Oh, I'm so glad, " she sighed. "I really did want you to get the workdone, and succeed--I never hated you that much, at the worst. "

"Don't talk about the work!" he said passionately. "The work didn'tmatter a bit. And I tell you this, Marjorie, if I can help it youshall never do another stroke of work as long as you live!"

"That's going too far, as usual, " said Marjorie calmly. "You certainlyare a tempestuous person, Francis Ellison! I'd be unhappy withoutsomething to do. . . . May I play on the banjo sometimes in theevening, and will you stay quite close to me when I do?"

"You mean----" he asked. 

"I mean that you didn't destroy all those notes when you lost yourtemper with me. To begin with, you left note-shaped places in thedust, on all the things you had put there for me--you really will haveto let me do a little dusting occasionally, dear!--and so I hunted. One note was under the fresh banjo strings. . . . And you may well beglad you forgot it. "

"Why, dearest? Did it make you a little sorry for me?"

"Oh, so sorry! In spite of all you'd said and done, somehow--somehowwhen I read that I think I began to fall in love with you all overagain. . . . I cried, I know. I didn't know then that was what wasthe matter with me, but I know now it was. You had wanted me so much, there in our dear little cabin; and try as I would to keep tellingmyself that it was a last year's you, it kept feeling like a thisyear's. "

"It was, " he said fervently. "It was this year's, and every year's, aslong as we both live. "

"As long as we both live, " echoed Marjorie. 

They were both quiet for a while. The sun was setting, and the raysshone down through the trees; through a gap they could see the west, scarlet and gold and beautiful. Things felt very solemn. Marjorie putout one hand mutely, and Francis took it and held it closely. It wasmore really their marriage day than the one in New York, when they wereboth young and reckless, and scarcely more than bits of flotsam in thetremendous world-current that set toward mating and replacement. Theybelonged together now, willingly and deliberately; set to go forwardwith what love and forbearance and earnestness of purpose they could, all the days of their life. They both felt it, and were still. 

But presently Marjorie's laughter awakened Francis from his muse. Hehad been promising himself that he would make up to her--that he wouldtry to erase all his wild doings from her mind. She should forget someday that he had ever put her in an automobile, and borne her away, Sabine fashion, to where he could dominate her into submission andwifehood. He had gone very far into himself, and that light laugh ofhers, that he loved, drew him back from the far places. 

"What is it, dear?" he asked. 

"I was just thinking--I was just thinking what awfully good commonsense you showed, carrying me off that way. And how proud of it I'llbe as long as I live!" said Marjorie.