ter," she consoled. "I'm all right; I'll
get along. It did seem terrible to me for a while--getting used
to being alone. I'll be all right now. I'll get along."

"I want you to feel that my attitude hasn't changed," he continued
eagerly. "I'm interested in what concerns you. Mrs.--Letty
understands that. She knows just how I feel. When you get settled I'll
come in and see how you're fixed. I'll come around here again in a few
days. You understand how I feel, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," she said.

He took her hand, turning it sympathetically in his own. "Don't
worry," he said. "I don't want you to do that. I'll do the best I can.
You're still Jennie to me, if you don't mind. I'm pretty bad, but I'm
not all bad."

"It's all right, Lester. I wanted you to do as you did. It's for
the best. You probably are happy since--"

"Now, Jennie," he interrupted; then he pressed affectionately her
hand, her arm, her shoulder. "Want to kiss me for old times' sake?" he
smiled.

She put her hands over his shoulders, looked long into his eyes,
then kissed him. When their lips met she trembled. Lester also felt
unsteady. Jennie saw his agitation, and tried hard to speak.

"You'd better go now," she said firmly. "It's getting dark."

He went away, and yet he knew that he wanted above all things to
remain; she was still the one woman in the world for him. And Jennie
felt comforted even though the separation still existed in all its
finality. She did not endeavor to explain or adjust the moral and
ethical entanglements of the situation. She was not, like so many,
endeavoring to put the ocean into a tea-cup, or to tie up the shifting
universe in a mess of strings called law. Lester still cared for her a
little. He cared for Letty too. That was all right. She had hoped once
that he might want her only. Since he did not, was his affection worth
nothing? She could not think, she could not feel that. And neither
could he.

CHAPTER LX

The drift of events for a period of five years carried Lester and
Jennie still farther apart; they settled naturally into their
respective spheres, without the renewal of the old time relationship
which their several meetings at the Tremont at first seemed to
foreshadow. Lester was in the thick of social and commercial affairs;
he walked in paths to which Jennie's retiring soul had never aspired.
Jennie's own existence was quiet and uneventful. There was a simple
cottage in a very respectable but