that."

"Any harm? I ought to have known it from the first. Out with it."

"Well, she told them you had been in prison, and you were sent there by
Weedon Moore and his party--"

"His party? What was that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Anybody can have a party. Something like Tammany,
maybe. You'd been sent to prison because it was you that had got them
their decent wages, and had the nice little houses built down at Mill
End. And there was a conspiracy against you, and she heard of it and
came over to tell them how it was. But you were in prison because you
stood up for labour."

"My word!" said Jeff. "And they believed her."

"Anybody'd believe anything from Madame Beattie," Lydia said positively.
"She told them lots of stories about you, lovely stories. Sometimes
she'd tell them to me afterward. She made you into a hero."

"Moses," said Jeff, "leading them out of bondage."

"Yes. Come, we can't stand here. If Miss Amabel sees us she'll think
we're crazy."

They walked down the path and out between the stone pillars where he had
met Esther. Jeff remembered it, and out of his wish to let Lydia into
his mind said, as they passed into the street:

"I have heard from her."

Lydia's sudden happiness in the night and in his company--in knowing,
too, she was well aware, that there was no Esther near--saw the cup
dashed from her lips. Jeff didn't wait for her to answer.

"From the boat," he said. "It was very short. She was with him. We
weren't to send her any more money. She said she had taken his name."

"How can she?" said Lydia stupidly. "She couldn't marry him."

"Maybe she thinks she can," said Jeff. He was willing to keep alive her
unthinking innocence. It was not the outcome of ignorance that cramps
and stultifies. He meant Lydia should be a child for a long time. "Now,
see. Her going makes it possible for me to be free--legally, I mean.
When I can marry, Lydia--" He stopped there. They were walking on the
narrow pavement, but not even their hands touched. "Do you love me,"
Jeff asked, "as much as you thought? That way, I mean?"

"Yes," said Lydia. "But I know what you'd like. Not to talk about it,
not to think about it much, but take care of Farvie--and you write--and
both of us work on plays--and sometime--"

"Yes," said Jeff, "sometime--"

One tremendous desire, of all the desires tumultuous in him, was
strongest. If Lydia was to be his--though already she seemed supremely
his in all the shy fealties of