e you were going to marry her. That's true, isn't
it?"

"Yes."

"You always said that marriage without love was wicked, Willy."

"Her child had a right to a name. And there were other things. I can't
very well explain them to you. Her mother was ill. Can't you understand,
Lily? I don't want to throw any heroics." In his excitement he had
lapsed into boyish vernacular. "Here was a plain problem, and a simple
way to solve it. But it is off now, anyhow; things cleared up without
that."

She got up and held out her hand.

"It was like you to try to save her," she said.

"Does this mean I am to go?"

"I am very tired, Willy."

He had a mad impulse to take her in his arms, and holding her close to
rest her there. She looked so tired. For fear he might do it he held his
arms rigidly at his sides.

"You haven't asked me about him," she said unexpectedly.

"I thought you would not care to talk about him. That's over and done,
Lily. I want to forget about it, myself."

She looked up at him, and had he had Louis Akers' intuitive knowledge of
women he would have understood then.

"I am never going back to him, Willy. You know that, don't you?"

"I hoped it, of course."

"I know now that I never loved him."

But the hurt of her marriage was still too fresh in him for speech. He
could not discuss Louis Akers with her.

"No," he said, after a moment, "I don't think you ever did. I'll come in
some evening, if I may, Lily. I must not keep you up now."

How old he looked, for him! How far removed from those busy, cheerful
days at the camp! And there were new lines of repression in his face;
from the nostrils to the corners of his mouth. Above his ears his hair
showed a faint cast of gray.

"You have been having rather a hard time, Willy, haven't you'?" she
said, suddenly.

"I have been busy, of course."

"And worried?"

"Sometimes. But things are clearing up now."

She was studying him with the newly opened eyes of love. What was it he
showed that the other men she knew lacked? Sensitiveness? Kindness? But
her father was both sensitive and kind. So was Pink, in less degree. In
the end she answered her own question, and aloud.

"I think it is patience," she said. And to his unspoken question: "You
are very patient, aren't you?"

"I never thought about it. For heaven's sake don't turn my mind in on
myself, Lily. I'll be running around in circles like a pup chasing his
tail."

He made a movement to leave,