how you treat him. But surely you'll try and give
him some sort of send-off? I wouldn't let even Dick go without that."

Even Dick! There was a world of revelation in those words. Avery's heart
stirred again in pity, and still her indignation slumbered.

They reached the shop before which Gracie was waiting for them,
and stopped.

"Good-bye!" Avery said gently.

"Oh, good-bye!" Ina looked at her with eyes half closed. "I won't get out
if you don't mind. I must be getting back."

She did not offer her hand, but she did not refuse it when very quietly
Avery offered her own. It was not a warm hand-clasp on either side, but
neither was it unfriendly.

As she drove away, Ina leaned forward and bowed with an artificial smile
on her lips. And Avery saw that she was very pale.

CHAPTER VII

THE PLACE OF REPENTANCE

Like a prince masquerading! How vivid was the picture those words called
up to Avery's mind! The regal pose of the body, the turn of the head, the
faultless beauty of the features, and over all, that nameless pride of
race, arrogant yet wholly unconscious--the stamp of the old Roman
patrician, revived from the dust of ages!

Aloof, yet never out of her ken, that picture hung before her all through
the night, the centre-piece of every vision that floated through her
weary brain. In the morning she awoke to a definite resolve.

He had left her before she could stay him; but she would go to him now.
Whether or not he wanted her,--yes, even with the possibility of seeing
him turn from her,--she would seek him out. Yet this once more she would
offer to him that love and faith which he had so cruelly sullied. If he
treated her with cold contempt, she would yet offer to him all that she
had--all that she had. Not because she had forgiven him or in any sense
forgotten; but because she must; because neither forgiveness nor
forgetfulness came into the matter, but only those white hairs above his
temples that urged her, that drove her, that compelled her.

There were no white hairs in her own brown tresses. Could it be that he
had really suffered more than she? If so, God pity him! God help him!

For the first time since their parting, the prayer for him that rose
from her heart kindled within her a glow that burned as fire from the
altar. She had prayed. She had prayed. But her prayers had seemed to
come back to her from a void immeasurable that held nought but the
echoes of her cry.

But now--was it be