tuart Farquaharson stands for a past chapter in your
thoughts. I love him and I know him. If the good opinion of a woman to
whom he is only a memory means more to his happiness than the possession
of everything in life I can give--and would gladly give--" She broke off
and added with regained composure, "Well, I love him enough to try to
get him what he wants, that's all."

She wheeled and went hurriedly down the path toward her car, leaving
Conscience standing on the terrace, with her lips parted and her hands
nervously clenched.

* * * * *

Conscience did not mention to her husband the visit of Marian Holbury.
To do so would not only have been the violation of a self-sacrificing
confidence but the pleading of a cause for which Eben could feel no
response except distaste. She knew that Eben thought of Marian as a
light and frivolous woman who had been cashiered from matrimony.

During the next two years--which passed in labored slowness, she kept
the matter to herself, though to her it was not merely a visit. It was a
time from which she dated other times. It was the day upon which her dam
had broken: the dam of her carefully reared fallacy. From that day on
she could no longer fall back on the idea of a discredited Stuart in
support of her efforts to exile him from her thoughts.

Thus disarmed, she asked herself, how was she to carry on the fight to
find contentment; and to the question came two and only two answers.
Children might fill the void of her existence or she might in time
school herself into a tame acceptance by a sheer crushing of impulses.

In the responsibilities of motherhood there might be even now a fullness
of compensation which would make of sacrifice an enthusiasm. The whole
unsatisfied abundance of her nature could laugh at disappointment,
striking out the past and living afresh in the lives of her children.

This was not a new thought and it held little hope. For two years she
had prayed for its fulfillment and now her faith faltered.

So the one thing left seemed to be a vapid and colorless resignation.

Alone in her bedroom one night, which was typical of many nights, she
pondered these matters. By her dresser mirror burned bayberry candles
and in their faintly wavering illumination she caught an occasional
glimpse of herself. She was not vain, but neither was she totally blind.
She knew that God had given her a mind suitable for alert companionship.
God