mustn't think of me as being unhappy," she said in one
place, "for I'm not. I am sure it ought to be just as it is, and I
wouldn't be happy if it were any other way. Lay out your life so as to
give yourself the greatest happiness, Lester," she added. "You deserve
it. Whatever you do will be just right for me. I won't mind." She had
Mrs. Gerald in mind, and he suspected as much, but he felt that her
generosity must be tinged greatly with self-sacrifice and secret
unhappiness. It was the one thing which made him hesitate about taking
that final step.

The written word and the hidden thought--how they conflict!
After six months the correspondence was more or less perfunctory on
his part, and at eight it had ceased temporarily.

One morning, as she was glancing over the daily paper, she saw
among the society notes the following item:

The engagement of Mrs. Malcolm Gerald, of 4044 Drexel Boulevard,
to Lester Kane, second son of the late Archibald Kane, of Cincinnati,
was formally announced at a party given by the prospective bride on
Tuesday to a circle of her immediate friends. The wedding will take
place in April.

The paper fell from her hands. For a few minutes she sat perfectly
still, looking straight ahead of her. Could this thing be so? she
asked herself. Had it really come at last? She had known that it must
come, and yet--and yet she had always hoped that it would not.
Why had she hoped? Had not she herself sent him away? Had not she
herself suggested this very thing in a roundabout way? It had come
now. What must she do? Stay here as a pensioner? The idea was
objectionable to her. And yet he had set aside a goodly sum to be hers
absolutely. In the hands of a trust company in La Salle Street were
railway certificates aggregating seventy-five thousand dollars, which
yielded four thousand five hundred annually, the income being paid to
her direct. Could she refuse to receive this money? There was Vesta to
be considered.

Jennie felt hurt through and through by this denouement, and yet as
she sat there she realized that it was foolish to be angry. Life was
always doing this sort of a thing to her. It would go on doing so. She
was sure of it. If she went out in the world and earned her own living
what difference would it make to him? What difference would it make to
Mrs. Gerald? Here she was walled in this little place, leading an
obscure existence, and there was he out in the great world enjoying
life in its f