arried very quietly and went away for a few
weeks. When they returned I sought Louise with eagerness, and found that
my fears were not groundless. I tried to think what to do. If it would
have eased matters, I would willingly have gone to her and confessed that
I instigated Charlie Hardy's confession. But I felt that the root of the
matter lay deeper than that, so I said nothing that could be construed
into an unwelcome knowledge of her affairs.

In the short time which elapsed between their return and the date set for
their departure for Europe, where they were to stay a year, I saw Louise
continually. She sought me as if she liked to be with me, although her
eyes never lost the anxious, hunted expression which you sometimes see in
the eyes of some trapped wild creature.

It was a raw morning, with a chill wind blowing, when their steamer was to
sail. Mr. Whitehouse, thinking I might have some last private word to say
to Louise, skilfully detached everybody else and strolled with them beyond
earshot, but where his eyes could continually rest upon his wife's face.

As Louise and I walked up and down I took in mine the small hand which
emerged from the great fur cuff of her boat cloak, and gradually its
rigidity relaxed under my friendly pressure. I remembered, as I
occasionally tightened my grasp upon it, that my dear little baby sister
Lois, who was taken away from us before she outgrew her babyhood, used to
squeeze my hand in this fashion, and when I asked her what it meant, she
invariably said, "It means dat it loves you." I wondered if the same
inarticulate language could be conveyed to poor, suffering Louise.
Suddenly she turned to me and said,

"You have thrown something gentle, a softness around me this morning. I
can feel it. What is it, Ruth?"

"I don't know, dear, unless it is my love for you."

"It is something more. Your eyes look into mine as if you knew all about
it and wished to comfort me."

As I made no answer, she turned and looked down at me from her superb
height.

"Tell me," she said quite gently; "I shall not be angry. Tell me, _do_ you
know?"

"Yes, Louise, I know."

She hesitated a moment as if she really had not believed it. Then she said
slowly,

"If any other person on earth except you had told me that, I should die. I
could not live in the knowledge. But you--well, your pity is not an insult
somehow."

"Because it is not pity, Louise," I said steadily. "There is a difference
b