with Miss Thornton the two were a great deal together, and it
thus came about that Julia was often at the brown cottage and helped to
settle the blue room for Daisy.

"If it were only you who was to occupy it," Frances said to her one
morning when they had been reading together for an hour or more in the
room they both thought so pleasant. "I like Daisy, but somehow she seems
so far from me. Why, there's not a sentiment in common between us."

Then, as if sorry for having said so much, she spoke of Daisy's
marvelous beauty and winning ways, and hoped Julia would know and love
her ere long, and possibly do her good.

It so happened that Guy was sometimes present at these readings,
enjoying them so much that there insensibly crept into his heart a wish
that Daisy was more like the Boston girl whom he had mentally termed
strong-minded.

"And in time, perhaps, she may be," he thought. "I mean to have Julia
here a great deal next summer, and with two such women for companions as
Julia and Fan, Daisy cannot help but improve."

And so at last, when the house was settled and the early spring flowers
were in bloom, Guy started westward for his wife. He had not seen her
now for months, and it was more than two weeks since he had heard from
her, and his heart beat high with joyful anticipation as he thought just
how she would look when she came to him, shyly and coyly, as she always
did, with that droop in her eyelids and that pink flush in her cheeks.
He would chide her a little at first, he said, for having been so poor a
correspondent, especially of late, and after that he would love her so
much, and shield her so tenderly from every want or care, that she
should never feel the difference in his fortune.

Poor Guy--he little dreamed what was in store for him just inside the
door where he stood ringing one morning early in May, and which, when at
last it was opened, shut in a very different man from the one who went
through it three hours later, benumbed and half-crazed with bewilderment
and surprise.

CHAPTER V

THE DIVORCE

He had expected to meet Daisy in the hall, but she was nowhere in sight,
and she who appeared in response to the card he sent up seemed confused
and unnatural to such a degree that Guy asked in some alarm if anything
had happened, and where Daisy was.

Nothing had happened--that is--well, nothing was the matter with Daisy,
Mrs. McDonald said, only she was nervous and not feeling quite w