ded. "Please----"

He turned away. I didn't want to hurt him.

"Bob," I said gently, "please understand. It isn't only that I think the
reasons for our decision of a year ago still exist, but I've just _got_
to stay here now, Bob, even though I don't want to. I've got it firmly
fixed in my mind _now_ that I'm going to see my undertaking through to a
successful end. I'm bound to show Tom and the family what sort of stuff
I'm made of. I'm going to prove that women aren't weak and vacillating.
Why, I haven't been even a year here yet. I couldn't run to cover the
first time I found myself out of a position. Besides the first position
wasn't one I could exhibit to the family. I _must_ stay. I'm just as
anxious to prove myself a success as a young man whose family doesn't
think he's got it in him. Please understand, and help me, Bob."

"Shall we see each other sometimes?" he queried.

"It's no use. It doesn't help," I said. "I do care for you, somehow, and
seeing you seems to make foggy what was so clear and crystal, as if I
were looking at it through a mist. I mean sitting here with you makes me
feel--makes me forget what I marched for day before yesterday. I was so
full of it--of all it meant and stood for--and now----No, Bob. No. You
must let me work these things out alone. I shall never be satisfied now
until I do."

He left me at my door. There was a light in the windows upstairs, and I
knew that Esther had come home. Bob left me with just an ordinary
hand-shake. It hurt somehow--that formal little ceremony from him. It
hurt, too, afterward to stand in the doorway and watch him walking away.
It hurt to hear the sound of his steady step growing fainter and
fainter. O Bob, you might have turned around and waved!

I went upstairs. "Hello," said Esther. "Where have you been?" and I told
her to dinner with a man from home. A little later I announced to her
that I had resigned my position as private secretary to Mrs. Sewall.
She asked no questions but she made her own slow deductions.

I must have impressed her as restless and not very happy that night. I
caught her looking at me suspiciously, once or twice, over her
gold-bowed reading-glasses. Once she inquired if I was ill, or felt
feverish. My cheeks did burn.

"Oh, no," I said, "but I guess I'll go to bed. It's almost midnight."

Esther took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

"One gets tired, sometimes, climbing," she observed. I waited. "The
trail up the mou