. He told her--he told _me_ there had never been such a
thing as an engagement between Miss Allison and himself, and that there
probably never would or could have been. I could see he was cut to the
heart, that he loves our brave Jenny deeply, truly, and there isn't any
quixotism about it. But she--why, the girl's just marble! It was he who
called me and stood there with such sadness and reproach in his eyes and
told me what he'd told her and begged that I should plead with her when
he was gone, but she only covered her face, with the tears trickling
down through her fingers, and when he had to go she stood up like a
little queen and said she thanked him and honored him, and even assured
him that there was no other man on earth she cared for, but no, _no_,
NO, was her one answer to his plea that she would be his wife.
She will not even let him write to her."

And Wells comforted his wife as best he could, but there was no
comforting himself.

That was the first of August,--the hottest, dryest ever known along the
lake, yet the dismal fog-horn tooted day after day and night after night
when not so much as a single tear could have been wrung from the ambient
air. It was all on account of the smoke-clouds that obscured the sun and
shut out the horizon weeks at a time, for the whole Northwest was one
blaze of forest fires, and Wells grew crabbed and ill tempered at his
desk and snapped at his new typewriter until, between the smoke and the
tears, her eyelids smarted. He delighted in bullying Allison whenever he
saw him. The magnate had offered Miss Wallen a permanent position and a
good salary in his own office, and marvelled at her refusal. She still
occupied her pretty room at the Wellses', but solely on her own
conditions,--that she should pay her board. She reopened her typewriter
in the big business block down town, and seemed to gain health, color,
and elasticity in her daily tramps to and fro. Business seemed to
prosper, now that the urgent need was over, and Jenny could have
afforded a better gown than that she chose to wear, but she didn't know
how soon Mart might lose his job again, and, as he never saved for the
wife and babies, she must needs save for them. Despite her prohibition,
two letters came from Forrest. She read them, answered the first, gently
and with womanly dignity in every line, but made no reply to the second.
Frequently on her evening homeward walk she encountered Miss Allison
riding or driving