ying she knew where she'd left it.

"Is this the reason you've kept yourself shut up here in the house so
often?" Therese asked of Hosmer, drawing near him. "Never telling me a
word of it," she went on, "it wasn't right; it wasn't kind."

"Why should I have put any extra burden on you?" he answered, looking
down at her, and feeling a joy in her presence there, that seemed like
a guilty indulgence in face of his domestic shame.

"Don't stay," Therese said. "Leave me here. Go to your office or over
to the house--leave me alone with her."

Fanny returned, having found the letter, and spoke with increased
vehemence of the necessity of having the house in perfect trim against
the arrival of Belle Worthington, from whom they would never hear the
last, and so forth.

"Well, your husband is going out, and that will give us a chance to
get things righted," said Therese encouragingly. "You know men are
always in the way at such times."

"It's what he ought to done before; and left Suze and Minervy here,"
she replied with grudging acquiescence.

After repeated visits to the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny
grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at
Therese, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of the
sitting-room into some order.

She continued to talk disjointedly of Belle Worthington and her well
known tyrannical characteristics in regard to cleanliness; finishing
by weeping mildly at the prospect of her own inability to ever reach
the high standard required by her exacting friend.

It was far in the afternoon--verging upon night, when Therese
succeeded in persuading her that she was ill and should go to bed. She
gladly seized upon the suggestion of illness; assuring Therese that
she alone had guessed her affliction: that whatever was thought
singular in her behavior must be explained by that sickness which was
past being guessed at--then she went to bed.

It was late when Hosmer left his office; a rough temporary shanty, put
together near the ruined mill.

He started out slowly on his long cold ride. His physical malaise of
the morning had augmented as the day went on, and he was beginning to
admit to himself that he was "in for it."

But the cheerless ride was lightened by a picture that had been with
him through the afternoon, and that moved him in his whole being, as
the moment approached when it might be changed to reality. He knew
Fanny's habits; knew that she would be slee