-something wrong," he finished
bitterly.

She said nothing for a moment. "And is that what you think, Ted?" she
asked, choking a little.

"I don't understand it, Ruth," he said, less aggressively. "I had
thought you would be so glad of the chance to marry. I--" he hesitated
but did not pursue that. He had never told her of going to see Mrs.
Williams, of the effort he had made for her. "It seemed that now, when
your chance came, you ought to show people that you do want to do the
right thing. It surprises me a lot, Ruth, that you don't feel that way,
and--Oh! I don't get it at all," he concluded abruptly.

Tears were very close when, after a little, she answered: "Well, Ted,
maybe when you have less of life left you will understand better what it
is I feel. Perhaps," she went on in answer to his look inquiry, "when
the future has shrunk down to fewer years you'll see it as more
important to get from it what you can."

They drove for a little time in silence. They had come in sight of the
town and she had not won Ted; she was going away without his sympathy.
And she was going away alone, more alone this time than she had been
twelve years before.

She laid her hand on his arm, left it there while she was speaking.
"Ted," she said, "it's like this. This has gone for me. It's all gone.
It was wonderful--but it's gone. Some people, I know, could go on with
the life love had made after love was gone. I am not one of those
people--that's all. You speak of there being something discreditable in
my going away just when I could marry. To me there would be something
discreditable in going on. It would be--" she put her hand over her
heart and said it very simply, "it would be unfaithful to something
here." She choked a little and he turned away.

"But I don't see how you can bear, Ruth," he said after a moment, made
gentle by her confidence, "to feel that it has--failed. I don't see how
you can bear--after all you paid for it--to let it come to nothing."

"Don't say that, Ted!" she cried in a voice that told he had touched the
sorest place. "Don't say that!" she repeated, a little wildly. "You
don't know what you're talking about. _Failed?_ A thing that glorified
life for years--_failed_?"

Her voice broke, but it was more steadily she went on: "That's the very
reason I'm going to New York--simply that it may _not_ come to nothing.
I'm going away from it for that very reason--that it may not come to
nothing! That my life