es, her vivid freshness and her youth, her
hunger for a life she saw only in dazzling glimpses.

"Do you want my advice about meeting Joe! Then here it is," she said at
the end. "I needn't say don't go on your knees--"

"You needn't!"

"I thought so--you're not that kind. And I wouldn't explain too much
about Dwight, and those little things you did with him. Make Joe take
you on faith or not at all. Have a long talk and make him listen--don't
give him a chance to say a word. Talk right on and give him the picture
of his two wives, and then let him choose--between letting you go, while
he takes her friends, or dropping them and keeping you and finding what
he had before. I can help you in that--but before I do, I think you've
got to lay a ghost. She's in the way of everything. She has been in
your home long enough. And her strength is the fact that you and Joe
never mention her name to each other. I wonder if you realize how great
a danger that has been. At any rate I'm very sure that you must break
the silence now. It has been like a spell between you."

CHAPTER XXVI

The next afternoon she sat waiting for Joe. She had come home the night
before feeling so strong and sure of her course. But beginning at the
moment when she came into the empty apartment, subtly and by slow
degrees again her home had cast its spell, as though the rooms were
haunted. "I've got to lay the ghost," she thought. She had telephoned
to Joe to come, and he had replied abruptly, "All right, I'll be there
about four o'clock." It was just that now. Ethel poked the logs in the
fireplace until there was a cheerful blaze. As she straightened up she
caught sight of her face in the mirror over the mantel. Even in the
firelight how gaunt and strained it looked to her.

"Not very attractive," she grimly thought. "This has got to be done by
brains, my dear."

In a moment she heard Joe's key in the door. She heard him taking off
his coat and then coming slowly into the room. With an effort she
turned and looked at him. His face appeared even more tense and grey
than it had two days before; the nerves seemed quivering under the skin.
And she felt a pang of pity. "He wasn't to blame for the way he acted,
it was his wretched nerves," she thought. "He'll have a break-down
after this."

"Well, Ethel!"

"Oh, Joe, I'm so glad you're here." All at once she felt herself change.
She had meant to be so firm with him; but now, after one quick anxious
loo