ly, "I _can_! I'll be misunderstood, I know. But I can't help
that. We've decided it together. It isn't I alone. Bob has decided it,
too. We both prefer to be unhappy alone, rather than unhappy together."

"In every marriage, readjustments are necessary," I commented.

"Don't argue," she burst out at me. "Don't! Don't you suppose Bob and I
have thought of every argument that exists to save our happiness? For
heaven's sake, Lucy, don't argue. I can't quite bear it." She turned
away and went upstairs.

She didn't want any dinner. "I'm going to bed early," she told me an
hour later when I knocked at her door. "No, not even toast and tea.
Please don't urge me," she begged, and I left her. At ten when I went to
bed her room was dark.

At half-past eleven I got up, stole across the hall, and stood listening
outside her closed door. At long intervals I could hear her move. She
was not sleeping. I waited an hour and stole across the hall again. She
was still awake. Poor Ruth--sleepless, tearless (there was no sound of
sobbing) hour after hour, there she was lying all night long, staring
into the darkness, waiting for the dawn. At three I opened the door
gently and went in, carrying something hot to drink on a tray.

"What is the matter?" she asked calmly.

"Nothing, Ruth. Only you must sleep, and here is some hot milk with just
a little pinch of salt. It's so flat without. Nobody can sleep on an
empty stomach."

"I guess that's the trouble," she said, and sat up and took the milk
humbly, like a child. Her fingertips were like ice. I went into the
bath-room, filled a hot-water bag, and got out an extra down-comforter. I
was tucking it in when she asked, "What time is it?" And I told her.
"Only three? Oh, dear--don't go--just yet." So I wrapped myself up in a
warm flannel wrapper and sat down on the foot of her bed with my feet
drawn up under me.

"I won't," I said, "I'll sit here."

"You're awfully good to me," Ruth remarked. "I _was_ cold and hungry, I
guess. Oh, Lucy," she exclaimed, "I wish one person could understand,
just _one_."

"I do, Ruth. I do understand," I said eagerly.

"It isn't suffrage. It isn't the parade. It isn't any _one_ thing. It's
just _everything_, Lucy. I'm made up on a wrong pattern for Bob. I hurt
him all the time. Isn't it awful--even though he cares for me, and I
for him, we hurt each other?"

I kept quite still. I knew that Ruth wanted to talk to some one, and I
sat there hugging my k