f that
I did not at once reply with a passionate affirmative. Surely I had
suffered enough to welcome Dicky's return at any time.

Ah! there was the root of the whole thing. I had suffered, how I had
suffered at Dicky's hands! As my memory ran back through our stormy
married life, I wondered whether it were wise--even though it should
be proved to me that Dicky had not gone away with Grace Draper--to
take up life with my husband again.

And then, woman-like, all the bitter recollections were shut out by
other memories which came thronging into my brain, memories of Dicky's
royal tenderness when he was not in a bad humor, of his voice, his
smile, his lips, his arms around me, I knew, although my reason
dreaded the knowledge, that unless my husband came back to me, I
should never know happiness again.

I opened my eyes and looked steadily at the young physician.

"Yes, God help me. I do!" I said.

Dr. Pettit winced as if I had struck him. Then he said gravely:

"Thank you for your honesty, and believe that if there be any way in
which I can serve you, I shall not hesitate to take it."

"I am sure of that," I replied earnestly, and the next moment, without
a farewell glance, a touch of my hand, he went over to Katherine, and,
in a voice very different in volume than the suppressed tones of his
conversation to me, I heard him apologize to her for having to go away
at once, heard her laughing reply that after the French hospitals she
did not fear the New York streets, and then the door had closed after
the young physician, whose too-evident interest in me had always
disturbed me.

I hastened to join Lillian and Katherine. I did not want to be left
alone. Thinking was too painful.

"Just think!" Katherine said as I joined them, "I find that I'm living
only a block away. I'm at my old rooming place--luckily they had
a vacant room. Of course, I shall be fearfully busy with Dr.
Braithwaite's work, but being so near, I can spend every spare minute
with you--that is, if you want me," she added shyly.

"Want you, child!" I returned, and I think the emphasis in my voice
reassured her, for she flushed with pleasure, and the next minute with
embarrassment as I said pointedly:

"I imagine you have some unusually interesting and pleasant things to
tell me, especially about my cousin."

But, after all, it was left for Jack himself to tell me the
"interesting things." Katherine became almost at once so absorbed in
the work