sia was silent a moment.

"He never knew," she repeated, in a low voice.

"Well, Phrasie, it looks very much as if we were in the same boat," he
said.

Euphrasia's heart gave a bound.

"Then you haven't spoke!" she cried; "I knew you hadn't. I--I was a
woman--but sometimes I've thought I'd ought to have given him some sign.
You're a man, Austen; thank God for it, you're a man. If a man loves a
woman, he's only got to tell her so."

"It isn't as simple as that," he answered.

Euphrasia gave him a startled glance.

"She ain't married?" she exclaimed.

"No," he said, and laughed in spite of himself.

Euphrasia breathed again. For Sarah Austen had had a morality of her
own, and on occasions had given expression to extreme views.

"She's not playin' with you?" was Euphrasia's next question, and her
tone boded ill to any young person who would indulge in these tactics
with Austen.

He shook his head again, and smiled at her vehemence.

"No, she's not playing with me--she isn't that kind. I'd like to tell
you, but I can't--I can't. It was only because you guessed that I said
anything about it." He disengaged his hand, and rose, and patted her on
the cheek. "I suppose I had to tell somebody," he said, "and you seemed,
somehow, to be the right person, Phrasie."

Euphrasia rose abruptly and looked up intently into his face. He thought
it strange afterwards, as he drove along the dark roads, that she had
not answered him.

Even though the matter were on the knees of the gods, Euphrasia would
have taken it thence, if she could. Nor did Austen know that she shared
with him, that night, his waking hours.

The next morning Mr. Thomas Gaylord, the younger, was making his way
towards the office of the Gaylord Lumber Company, conveniently situated
on Willow Street, near the railroad. Young Tom was in a particularly
jovial frame of mind, despite the fact that he had arrived in Ripton, on
the night express, as early as five o'clock in the morning. He had been
touring the State ostensibly on lumber business, but young Tom had a
large and varied personal as well as commercial acquaintance, and he had
the inestimable happiness of being regarded as an honest man, while
his rough and genial qualities made him beloved. For these reasons and
others of a more material nature, suggestions from Mr. Thomas Gaylord
were apt to be well received--and Tom had been making suggestions.

Early as he was at his office--the office-boy was