or your husband, for God's sake make some
effort, some sacrifice of your own petty little desires, to make his
road a little pleasanter, a little less gray than it must be now.
You'll be well repaid--if you are the kind that must always be paid in
full. Don't be a stiff-necked idiot. That's all I wanted to say.
Good-by!"

She was at the door when she finished. The click of the closing catch
stirred Hazel to speech and action.

"Vesta, Vesta!" she cried, and ran out into the corridor.

But Vesta Lorimer neither heeded nor halted. And Hazel went back to
her room, quivering. Sometimes the truth is bitter and stirs to wrath.
And mingled with other emotions was a dull pang of jealousy--the first
she had ever known. For Vesta Lorimer was beautiful beyond most women;
and she had but given ample evidence of the bigness of her soul. With
shamed tears creeping to her eyes, Hazel wondered if _she_ could love
even Bill so intensely that she would drive another woman to his arms
that he might win happiness.

But one thing stood out clear above that painful meeting. She was done
fighting against the blankness that seemed to surround her since Bill
went away. Slowly but steadily it had been forced upon her that much
which she deemed desirable, even necessary, was of little weight in the
balance with him. Day and night she longed for him, for his cheery
voice, the whimsical good humor of him, his kiss and his smile.
Indubitably Vesta Lorimer was right to term her a stiff-necked, selfish
fool. But if all folk were saturated with the essence of wisdom--well,
there was but one thing to be done. Silly pride had to go by the
board. If to face gayly a land she dreaded were the price of easing
his heartache--and her own--that price she would pay, and pay with a
grace but lately learned.

She lay down on the lounge again. The old pains were back. And as she
endured, a sudden startling thought flashed across her mind. A
possibility?--Yes. She hurried to dress, wondering why it had not
before occurred to her, and, phoning up a taxi, rolled downtown to the
office of Doctor Hart. An hour or so later she returned. A picture of
her man stood on the mantel. She took it down and stared at it with a
tremulous smile.

"Oh, Billy-boy, Billy-boy, I wish you knew," she whispered. "But I was
coming, anyway, Bill!"

That evening, stirring about her preparations for the journey, she
paused, and wondered why, for the first time si