saw Una in New
York, for some instinct had restrained me; not until some time after I
had Jerry's first letter, just a few lines written from somewhere in
Manitoba, merely telling me that he was in good health and asking me
not to worry. But brief as it was, this message cheered me
inexpressibly.

I could not bring myself to go to Briar Hills again, but managed a
meeting with Miss Gore, who told me that Marcia was in a more than
usually fiendish temper most of the time--quite unbearable, in fact.
She was going away to Bar Harbor, she thought, and the certainty of
Miss Gore's tenure of office depended much upon Marcia's treatment of
her. They had quarreled. To be a poor relation was one thing, to be a
martyr another.

She couldn't understand Marcia's humor, moody and irascible by turns,
and once when Miss Gore had mentioned Jerry's name she flew into a
towering rage and threw a hair brush through a mirror--a handsome
mirror she particularly liked.

Jerry's affair with Marcia was ended. There could be no possible doubt
about that. Further than this Miss Gore knew nothing. It was enough. I
was content, so content that in my commiseration I held her hand
unduly long and she asked me what I was going to do with it, and not
knowing I dropped it suddenly and made my exit I fear rather
awkwardly. What could I have done with it? A fine woman that, but
cryptic.

It was June when Jerry left, not until midwinter that he returned to
Horsham Manor. He was very much changed, older-looking, less
assertive, quieter, deeper-toned, more thoughtful. It was as though
the physical Jerry that I knew had been subjected to some searching
test which had eliminated all superfluities, refined the good metal in
him, solidified, unified him. And the physical was symbolic of the
spiritual change. I knew that since that night in July the world had
tried him in its alembic with its severest tests and that he had
emerged safely. He was not joyous but he seemed content. Life was no
longer a game. It was a study. Bitter as experience had been, it had
made him. Perfect he might not be but sound, sane, wholesome. Jerry
had grown to be a man!

But Jerry and I were to have new moments of _rapprochement_. As the
days of his stay at the Manor went on, our personal relations grew
closer. He spoke of his letters to Una and of hers to him, but his
remarks about her were almost impersonal. It seemed as though some
delicacy restrained him, some newly discove