bition that bade him tread as near as possible to Addington's upper
class--forbade his seeking her until he had a right to. And if she would
not free herself, the right would never be his.

One day, standing by his window at dusk moodily looking out while the
invisible filaments that drew him to her tightened unbearably, he saw
Jeff go past. At once Reardon knew Jeff was going to her, and he found
it monstrous that the husband whose existence meant everything to him
should be seeking her unhindered. He got his hat and coat and hurried
out into the street in time to see Jeff turn in at her gate. He strode
along that way, and then halted and walked back again. It seemed to him
he must know at least when Jeff came out.

Jeff had been summoned, and Esther met him with no pretence at an
artifice of coolness. She did not ask him to sit down. They stood there
together in the library looking at each other like two people who have
urgent things to say and limited time to say them in.

"Jeff," she began, "you're all I've got in the world. Aunt Patrica's
going away."

Jeff clutched upon his reason and hoped it would serve him while
something more merciful kept him kind.

"Good!" said he. "That's a relief for you."

"In a way," said Esther. "But it leaves me alone, with grandmother. It's
like being with a dead woman. I'm afraid of her. Jeff, if you'd only
thought of it yourself! but I have to say it. Won't you come here to
live?"

"If he had only thought of it himself!" his heart ironically repeated.
Had he not in the first years of absence from her dreamed what it would
be to come back to a hearth she was keeping warm?

"Esther," he said, "only a little while ago you said you were afraid of
me."

Esther had no answer to make. Yet she could take refuge in a perfect
humility, and this she did.

"I ask you, Jeff," she said. "I ask you to come back."

The world itself seemed to close about him, straiter than the walls of
the room. Had he, in taking vows on him when he truly loved her, built a
prison he must dwell in to the end of his life or hers? Did moral law
demand it of him? did the decencies of Addington?

"I ask you to forgive me," said Esther. "Are you going to punish me for
what I did?"

"No," said Jeff, in a dull disclaimer. "I don't want to punish you."

But he did not want to come back. This her heart told her, while it
cautioned her not to own she knew.

"I shouldn't be a burden on you," she said. "I sho