not find his voice, and she went out of the room, and came
back almost immediately.

"I thought you knew," she said simply.

She laid a sheet of paper on the table, and Archer put out his hand and
took it up. The letter contained only a few lines.

"May dear, I have at last made Granny understand that my visit to her
could be no more than a visit; and she has been as kind and generous as
ever. She sees now that if I return to Europe I must live by myself,
or rather with poor Aunt Medora, who is coming with me. I am hurrying
back to Washington to pack up, and we sail next week. You must be very
good to Granny when I'm gone--as good as you've always been to me.
Ellen.

"If any of my friends wish to urge me to change my mind, please tell
them it would be utterly useless."

Archer read the letter over two or three times; then he flung it down
and burst out laughing.

The sound of his laugh startled him. It recalled Janey's midnight
fright when she had caught him rocking with incomprehensible mirth over
May's telegram announcing that the date of their marriage had been
advanced.

"Why did she write this?" he asked, checking his laugh with a supreme
effort.

May met the question with her unshaken candour. "I suppose because we
talked things over yesterday--"

"What things?"

"I told her I was afraid I hadn't been fair to her--hadn't always
understood how hard it must have been for her here, alone among so many
people who were relations and yet strangers; who felt the right to
criticise, and yet didn't always know the circumstances." She paused.
"I knew you'd been the one friend she could always count on; and I
wanted her to know that you and I were the same--in all our feelings."

She hesitated, as if waiting for him to speak, and then added slowly:
"She understood my wishing to tell her this. I think she understands
everything."

She went up to Archer, and taking one of his cold hands pressed it
quickly against her cheek.

"My head aches too; good-night, dear," she said, and turned to the
door, her torn and muddy wedding-dress dragging after her across the
room.

XXXIII.

It was, as Mrs. Archer smilingly said to Mrs. Welland, a great event
for a young couple to give their first big dinner.

The Newland Archers, since they had set up their household, had
received a good deal of company in an informal way. Archer was fond of
having three or four friends to dine, and May welcomed them with the