and disturbed her. Now he was gone again. She would
presently go down to mash Teddy's baked potato, and serve watery canned
pears from the pressed glass bowl. She would dress in white, and go
driving with Cliff and Teddy and Ruth in the late afternoon. Life would
resume its normal placidity.

A week from to-day Rose and Sally would give her the announcement
party. Martie resolutely forced her thoughts to the hour of John's
arrival: of what had she been thinking then? Of her wedding gown of
blue taffeta, and the blue straw hat wreathed with roses. She must go
down to the city, perhaps, for the hat--?

But the city brought John again to her mind, and for a few delicious
minutes she let herself remember his voice, his burning words, his
deep, meaning look.

"Well, it's wonderful--to have a man care that way!" she said, forcing
herself to get up, and set about dressing. "It's something to have had,
but it's over!"

CHAPTER VI

Over, however, the episode was not, and after a few days Martie
realized with a sort of shame that she did not wish it to be over. She
could not keep her memory away from the enchanted hours when John's
presence had lent a glory to the dark old house and the prosaic
village. She said with a pang: "It was only yesterday--it was only
two--only three--days ago, that he was here, that all the warmth and
delight of it was mine!"

The burning lightness and dryness seemed still to possess her: she was
hardly conscious of the days she was living, for the poignancy and
power of the remembered days. The blue taffeta dress had lost its
charm, everything had grown strangely dull and poor.

She passed the lumber-yard with a quickened heart; she climbed the hill
alone, and leaned on the fence where they had leaned, and let the full,
splendid recollection sweep across her. She knelt in church and prayed
that there would be a letter from Dean Silver, saying that Adele was
dead--

A little cottage on a river bank in Connecticut became her Heaven. She
gave it an old flag-stone walk, she sprinkled the green new grass of an
Eastern spring with daisies. She dreamed of a simple room, where
breezes and sunshine came by day, and the cool moon by night, and where
she and John laughed over their bread and cheese.

So far it was more joy than pain. But there swiftly came a time when
pain alone remained. Life became almost intolerable.

Clifford, coming duly to see her every evening, never dreamed of the
t