sleepy. He was thinking
of the house--of things that had gone on there. He thought of Ruth and
Stuart--of the difference they had made in that house. And he kept
thinking of Mrs. Williams, thinking in this new way of the difference it
must have meant to her, must have made in _her_ house. He wondered about
the house she had just gone home to, wondered if she got lonely,
wondered about the feeling there might be beneath that manner of not
seeming to mind. He wondered just what it was made her keep from getting
a divorce. And suddenly the strangest thought shot into his mind--Had
anyone ever _asked_ her to get a divorce!

Then he laughed; he had to make himself laugh at the preposterousness of
his idea. The laugh made such a strange sound in the bare room that he
lay there very still for a moment. Then loudly he cleared his throat, as
if to show that he was not afraid of making another noise.

But the house was so strangely still, empty in such a queer way; it was
too strange to let him go to sleep, and he lay there thinking of things
in a queer way. That preposterous idea kept coming back. Maybe nobody
ever _had_ asked her to get the divorce; maybe it had just been taken
for granted that she would be hard, would make it as hard as she could.
He tried to keep away from that thought, something made him want to keep
away from it, but he could not banish that notion that there were people
who would be as decent as it was assumed they would be. He had noticed
that with the fellows. Finally he got a little sleepy and he had a
childish wish that he were not alone, that it could all be again as it
had been long ago when they were all there together--before Ruth went
away.

He slept heavily toward morning and was at last awakened by the
persistent ringing of the doorbell. It was a special delivery letter
from Ruth. She said she hoped it would catch him before he started West.
She wanted him to stop in Denver and see if he could get one of those
"Jap" men of all work. She said: "Maggie Gordon's mother has 'heard' and
came and took her home. I turn to the Japanese--or Chinese, if it's a
Chinaman you can get to come,--as perhaps having less fear of moral
contamination. Do the best you can, Ted; I need someone badly."

He was to leave at five o'clock that afternoon. The people whom he saw
thought he was feeling broken up about leaving; he had to hold back all
feeling, they thought; it was that made his face so set and queer and