austere gloom, yet he begun again to attend
to his practice and to take interest in it. Clemency remained away for a
week. Then Gordon brought her home. She was at the dinner-table that
night when James returned rather late from a call on a far-off patient.
She simply said, "Good evening! Doctor Elliot," as if he had been the
merest acquaintance, and went on to serve his soup. James gave her a
bewildered, half-grieved, half-angered look, which she seemed not to
notice. Immediately after dinner she went to her own room. James,
smoking with Gordon in the office, heard her go upstairs. Gordon nodded
at James through the cloud of smoke.

"She has taken a notion, my son," he said. "She told me on the way home
that she wished to break the engagement with you. She would give no
reason. She wished me to tell you. I don't take her seriously. She cares
as much for you as ever. Girls are queer cattle. She has some utterly
unimaginable idea in her head, which will run itself out. If I were you
I would pay no attention to it. Simply take her at her word, and let her
alone for a little while, and she herself will urge you for a
reconciliation. I know the child. She simply cannot remain at odds for
any length of time with any one whom she loves, and she does love you;
but she is freakish, and at times inclined to strain at her bit. Perhaps
Annie Lipton has been putting ideas into her head against marriage in
general. She may have frightened her, and they may have sworn celibacy
together in the watches of the night. Girls hatch more mischief when
they ought to be asleep. They are queer cattle."

"The trouble began before Clemency went away," James said soberly. He
was quite pale.

"Trouble? What trouble?"

"I don't know. All I know is, that the very day when Clemency went away
she seemed changed to me. You remember how she called out good-by, and I
did not go out to help her off as I should naturally have done."

"Yes, I do remember that, and I did wonder at your not going."

"I did not go because I was quite sure that she did not wish it. She had
been very curt with me, and had shown me unmistakably that my attentions
were not welcome."

"And you don't know why? There had been no quarrel?"

"Not the slightest. I have not the faintest idea what the trouble is or
was, and why she wishes to break the engagement. All I know is that as
suddenly as a weather vane turns from west to north, she turned, and
seemed to have no more use