r sandwiches, and feeling
as if every bite would choke her, while Victor feebly struggled with
commonplaces.

The sound of carriage-wheels could be heard drawing near to the door;
the last, the very last moment had arrived! Ruth raised her beautiful,
sad face and gazed steadily at Victor, and he stopped short in the
middle of a sentence, and turned guiltily aside. He could not meet her
eyes.

After that all was bustle and confusion--servants crowding to say good-
bye, villagers bobbing farewell curtseys at their doors, elaborate
regrets and hopes for a speedy return from acquaintances at the little
station, tears from Mrs Thornton, and a last glimpse of Victor's tall
figure standing motionless on the platform; then they were off, and Jack
tactfully busied himself behind his newspaper until the first painful
moments were past.

When he ventured to lower the screen, both girls were perfectly composed
and dry-eyed, gazing out of their respective windows. His eyes turned
from Ruth to dwell upon Mollie at the further end of the carriage. The
fashionable young woman had disappeared, and he saw again the simple
girl in shabby serge coat and close-fitting hat with whom he had
travelled weeks before, yet there was a difference which his fastidious
eyes were quick to note, a dainty precision in the way the clothes were
worn, a perfection of detail, a neatness of coiffure.

Mollie was too clever and adaptive to have missed the lessons of the
last few weeks, and the change of expression was even more marked. The
audacious school-girl had disappeared, and in her place sat a woman,
with a grave, set face, and eyes that stared into space, seeing things
that were far away.

Jack's heart contracted with a stab of pain. He dropped his paper, and
with one long step crossed the carriage and seated himself by her side.
Ruth turned in her seat to stare more persistently out of her window,
and the clattering of the train made it impossible to overhear a
conversation.

"Mollie!" said Jack softly.

She turned her head and looked at him, neither startled nor smiling, but
with a patient sadness, the sight of which brought with it yet another
stab.

"For Heaven's sake, Mollie, don't look like that! Things will right
themselves again, or you may find that they are not so bad as you
expect. In any case, there's a pleasure in helping to pull them
straight. It may be a tug just at first, but that only means more
satisfaction in th