rful revelation of Jerry's sin. I
was silent, thinking of new words of comfort for him and for
myself--for I was not innocent--but they would not come, and Jerry
rose and walked the length of the room. "I've got to get away from it
all again--somewhere. I can't stay here. Everything brings it all
back. I'm going away."

"Going, Jerry? Where?"

"I don't know. I've made a kind of plan. But I mustn't tell. I don't
want you to know or anyone. But I've got to leave here." He smiled a
little as he saw the anxious look in my eyes. "Oh, don't worry. I'm
going to be all right, I don't drink, you know."

I think he was really a little proud of that admission.

"Are you sure, Jerry," I asked after awhile, "that you care nothing
for Marcia?"

He took a turn up and down the room before he replied. And then, quite
calmly:

"It's curious, Roger. She has gone out of my life. Gone like--like a
burned candle. I do not love her, nor ever could again, and yet I
would marry her tomorrow if she would have me. I wrote her again
yesterday, and I'm going to try to see her in New York. But I'll fail.
My face would always be a reproach to her. I know. She is like
that--bitter. I don't know that I can blame her."

It was long past midnight. Jerry went to bed. But I sat oblivious of
the passing hours, wide awake, somber, my gaze fixed upon the square
of the window which turned from moonlight to dark and then at last
shimmered with the dusk of the dawn.

CHAPTER XXVII

REVELATIONS

It was at Jerry's request that I stayed on at Horsham Manor, working
as I could upon my book, and now I think with a new knowledge of the
meaning of life as I had learned it through Jerry's failure. I
discovered comfort in the words of St. Paul, and prayed that out of
spiritual death the seed of a new life might germinate. Jerry had told
me nothing on leaving the Manor of his plans or purposes, and I made
no move to seek him out, aware of a new confidence growing in me that
wherever Jerry was, whatever he was doing, no new harm would come to
him. He had found himself at last.

Upon the occasion of my infrequent visits to the city I did myself the
honor of calling at the house in Washington Square, where I made the
acquaintance of a fair majority of the feminine Habberton family,
enjoying long chats with Una in which the bonds of our friendship were
still more firmly cemented. She told me much of her work and of course
we spoke of Jerry, but if she