ovels and of opera plots. This was what such women felt,
then ... this was "shame." ... Phrases of the newspaper and the pulpit
danced before her.... She dared not speak, and his silence began to
frighten her. Had ever a heart beat so wildly before in Wentworth?

He turned at last, and taking her two hands, quite simply, kissed them
one after the other.

"I shall never forget--" he said in a confused voice, unlike his own.

A return of strength enabled her to rise, and even to let her eyes meet
his for a moment.

"Thank you," she said, simply also.

She turned away from the bench, regaining the path that led back to the
college buildings, and he walked beside her in silence. When they
reached the elm walk it was dotted with dispersing groups. The
"speaking" was over, and Hamblin Hall had poured its audience out into
the moonlight. Margaret felt a rush of relief, followed by a receding
wave of regret. She had the distinct sensation that her hour--her one
hour--was over.

One of the groups just ahead broke up as they approached, and projected
Ransom's solid bulk against the moonlight.

"My husband," she said, hastening forward; and she never afterward
forgot the look of his back--heavy, round-shouldered, yet a little
pompous--in a badly fitting overcoat that stood out at the neck and hid
his collar. She had never before noticed how he dressed.

IV

THEY met again, inevitably, before Dawnish left; but the thing she
feared did not happen--he did not try to see her alone.

It even became clear to her, in looking back, that he had deliberately
avoided doing so; and this seemed merely an added proof of his
"understanding," of that deep undefinable communion that set them alone
in an empty world, as if on a peak above the clouds.

The five days passed in a flash; and when the last one came, it brought
to Margaret Ransom an hour of weakness, of profound disorganization,
when old barriers fell, old convictions faded--when to be alone with
him for a moment became, after all, the one craving of her heart. She
knew he was coming that afternoon to say "good-by"--and she knew also
that Ransom was to be away at South Wentworth. She waited alone in her
pale little drawing-room, with its scant kakemonos, its one or two
chilly reproductions from the antique, its slippery Chippendale chairs.
At length the bell rang, and her world became a rosy blur--through
which she presently discerned the austere form of Mrs. Sperry, wife