oved her as did that picture of Martin's loneliness and sickness. Wave
after wave of persuasion swept over her: "Go! Go now! Take the train to
Paris. You can find out from Mr. Magnus where he was living. He is
sick. He needs you. You swore to him that you would never desert him,
and you have deserted him. They don't want you here. Grace hates you,
and Paul is too lazy to care!"

At the thought of Paul resolution came to her. She looked up at the
rather fat, amiable youth with the stout legs and the bare knees in the
football photograph, and prayed to it: "Paul, I'm very lonely and
tempted. Care for me even though I can't love you as you want. Don't
give me up because I can't let you have what some one else has got.
Let's be happy, Paul--please."

She was shivering. She looked back with a terrified, reluctant glance
to the drawer where Mr. Magnus' letter was, then she went downstairs.

Soon after they started for Little Harben. The last days in Skeaton had
scarcely been happy ones. Grace had erected an elaborate scaffolding of
offended dignity and bitter misery. She was not bitterly miserable,
indeed she enjoyed her game, but it was depressing to watch Paul give
way to her. He was determined to leave her in a happy mind. Any one
could have told him that the way to do that was to leave her alone
altogether. Instead he petted her, persuading her to eat her favourite
pudding, buying her a new work-box that she needed, dismissing a boy
from the choir (the only treble who was a treble) because he was
supposed to have made a long-nose at Grace during choir-practice.

He adopted also a pleading line with her. "Now, Grace dear, don't you
think you could manage a little bit more?"

"Do you think you ought to go out in all this rain, Grace dear?"

"Grace, you look tired to death. Shall I read to you a little?"

He listened to her stories with a new elaborate attention. He laughed
heartily at the very faintest glimmer of a joke. Through it all Grace
maintained an unreleased solemnity, a mournful superiority, a grim
forbearance.

Maggie, watching, felt with a sinking heart that she was beginning to
despise Paul.

His very movement as he hurried to place a cushion for Grace sent a
little shiver down her back. "Oh, don't do it, Paul!" she heard herself
cry internally, but she could say nothing. She had won her victory
about Harben. She could only now be silent. Still, she bore no grudge
at all against Grace. She even liked h