as very
worn, "you just don't realize how crazy the whole thing is. It's
ridiculous for you to go to New York--alone! You've never been there,"
he said firmly.

"No. That is one reason for going," she answered, rather feebly.

"One reason for going!" he cried. "What'll you do when the train pulls
in? Where'll you _go_?"

"I don't know, Ted," she said patiently, "just where I will go. And I
rather like that--not knowing where I will go. It's all new, you see.
Nothing is mapped out."

"It's a fool thing!" he cried. "Don't you know that something will
happen to you?"

She smiled a little, very wearily. "Lots of things have happened to me,
Ted, and I've come through them somehow." After a moment she added, with
more spirit: "There's just one thing might happen to me that I haven't
the courage to face." He looked at her inquiringly. "Nothing happening,"
she said, with a little smile.

He turned impatiently and slapped the horse with the reins. "You seem to
have lost your senses," he said sharply.

He drove along in silence for a little. Ruth looked at him and his face
seemed hard. She thought of how close she and Ted had come, how good he
had been, how much it had meant. She could not leave him like this. She
must make the effort, must gather herself together and try and make Ted
see. "Perhaps, Ted," she began tremulously, "you think I have taken
leave of my senses because you haven't tried very hard to understand
just what it is I feel." She smiled wanly as she added, "You've been so
absorbed in your own disapproval, you know."

"Well, how can I be any other way?" he demanded. "Going away like
this--for no reason--on a wild goose chase! Isn't Stuart good to you?"
he asked abruptly.

"Yes, Ted," she answered, as if she were tired of saying it, "Stuart is
good enough to me."

"I suppose things aren't--just as they used to be," he went on, a little
doggedly. "Heavens!--they aren't with anybody! And what will people
say?" he broke out with new force. "Think of what people in Freeport
will say, Ruth. They'll say the whole thing was a failure, and that it
was because you did wrong. They'll say, when the chance finally came,
that Stuart didn't want to marry you." He colored but brought it out
bluntly.

"I suppose they will," agreed Ruth.

"And if they knew the truth--or what I know, though heaven knows I'm
balled up enough about what the truth really is!--they'd say it just
shows again that you are different, not-