t down on the table at his side, waited patiently until he
should look up again from his paper. A lump as hard as lead had risen
in her throat and was choking her.

"Are the children well?" he asked presently, and she answered with an
affected brightness more harrowing than tears, "Yes, mother is taking
care of them. Lucy still has the little cough, but I'm giving her
cod-liver oil. And, what do you think? I have a surprise for you. Harry
can read the first lesson in his reader."

He smiled kindly back at her, but from the vacancy in his face, she
realized that he had not taken in a word that she had said. His trouble,
whatever it was, could absorb him so utterly that he had ceased even to
be interested in his children. He, who had borne so calmly the loss of
that day-old baby for whom she had grieved herself to a shadow, was
plunged into this condition of abject hopelessness merely because his
play was a failure! It was not only impossible for her to share his
suffering; she realized, while she watched him, that she could not so
much as comprehend it. Her limitations, of which she had never been
acutely conscious until to-day, appeared suddenly insurmountable. Love,
which had seemed to her to solve all problems and to smooth all
difficulties, was helpless to enlighten her. It was not love--it was
something else that she needed now, and of this something else she knew
not even so much as the name.

She drank her coffee quickly, fearing that if she did not take food she
should lose control of herself and anger him by a display of hysterics.

"I don't wonder you couldn't drink your coffee," she said with a
quivering little laugh. "It must have been made yesterday." Then, unable
to bear the strain any longer, she cried out sharply: "Oh, Oliver,
won't you tell me what is the matter?"

His look grew hard, while a spasm of irritation contracted his mouth.

"There's nothing you need worry about--except that I've borrowed money,
and I'm afraid we'll have to cut down things a bit until I manage to pay
it back."

"Why, of course we'll cut down things," she almost laughed in her
relief. "We can live on a great deal less, and I'll market so carefully
that you will hardly know the difference. I'll put Marthy in the kitchen
and take care of the children myself. It won't be the least bit of
trouble."

She knew by his face that he was grateful to her, though he said merely:
"I'm a little knocked up, I suppose, so you mustn't m