or what he
felt sure was inevitable.

"You know, Ruth," he said, "I don't wish to say anything against
Isaac, and I don't want to make you uneasy, but you know as well as
I do that he has a strange maggot in his brain. When I first heard
him talk, I thought of him as a sort of fanatic. It seems to me that
he has changed. I am not sure that such changes as have taken place
in him lately have not been for the worse."

"Tell me what you mean?" she begged.

"I mean," he continued, "that Isaac, who perhaps in himself may be
incapable of harm, might be an easy prey to those who worked upon
his wild ideas. Hasn't it struck you that for the last few days--"

She clutched at his hand and stopped him.

"Don't!" she implored. "These last few days have been horrible.
Isaac has not left his room except to creep out sometimes into mine.
He keeps his door locked. What he does I don't know, but if he
hears a step on the stairs he slinks away, and his face is like the
face of a hunted wolf. Arnold, do you think that he has been getting
into trouble?"

"I am afraid," Arnold said, regretfully, "that it is not impossible.
Tell me, Ruth, you are very fond of him?"

"He was my mother's brother--the only relative I have in the world,"
she answered. "What could I do without him?"

"He doesn't seem to want you particularly, just now, at any rate,"
Arnold said. "I don't see why we shouldn't take rooms out at one of
these little villages. I could go back and forth quite easily. You'd
like it, wouldn't you, Ruth? Fancy lying in a low, comfortable
chair, and looking up at the blue sky, and listening to the birds
and the humming of bees. The hours would slip by."

"I should love it," she murmured.

"Then why not?" he cried. "I'll stop the car at the next village we
come to, and make inquiries."

She laid her hand softly upon his.

"Arnold, dear," she begged, "it sounds very delightful, and yet,
can't you see it is impossible? I am not quite like other women,
perhaps, but, after all, I am a woman. It is for your sake--for your
sake, mind--that I think of this."

He turned and looked at her--looked at her, perhaps, with new eyes.
She was stretched almost at full length upon the grass, her head,
which had been supported by her clasped hands, now turned towards
him. As she lay there, with her stick out of sight, her lips a
little parted, her eyes soft with the sunlight, a faint touch of
color in her cheeks, he suddenly realized the sig