l of yourself, Jack," she counselled with genuine concern.
He did not reply, merely kissed the little girl, and smiled wearily.

"Try to get away early--in July," were her last words.

Jack nodded and turned back to the steaming city. Milly, reflecting with
a sigh that her husband was usually like this in the spring, sank back
into her chair and opened _Life_. For several weeks after that parting
she heard nothing from Jack, although she wrote with what for her was
great promptness. Then she received a brief letter that contained the
astonishing news of his having left the magazine. "There have been
changes in the new management," he wrote, "and it seemed best to get
out." But neither Billman nor Fredericks had felt obliged to leave the
magazine, she learned from Hazel.

She could not understand. She telegraphed for further details and urged
him to join her at once and take his vacation. He replied vaguely that
some work was detaining him in the city, and that he might come later.
"The city isn't bad," he said. And with that Milly had to content
herself.... The summer place filled rapidly, and she was occupied with
immediate interests. She said to Hazel,--"It's so foolish of Jack to
stay there in that hot city when he might be comfortably resting here
with us!" Hazel made no reply, and Milly vaguely wondered if she knew
more about the situation on the magazine than she would tell.

It was in August, in a sweltering heat which made itself felt even
beside the Maine sea, that a telegram came from Clive Reinhard, very
brief but none the less disturbing. "Your husband here ill--better
come." The telegram was dated from Caromneck,--Reinhard's place on the
Sound....

By the time Milly had made the long journey her husband was dead.
Reinhard met her at the station in his car. She always remembered
afterwards that gravelly patch before the station, with its rows of
motor-cars waiting for the men about to arrive from the city on the
afternoon trains, and Reinhard's dark little face, which did not smile
at her approach.

"He was sick when he came out," he explained brusquely; "don't believe
he ever got over that last attack of grippe.... It was pneumonia: the
doctor said his heart was too weak."

It was the commonplace story of the man working at high pressure, often
under stimulants, who has had the grippe to weaken him, so that when the
strain comes there is no resistance, no reserve. He snaps like a sapped
reed.... The