to go down to him, and take over
some of his settlement work."

"Shall you go?"

Brenton shook his head.

"It's out of the question, Opdyke. I only wish I could, for I am not of
much use to your father, I'm afraid. Still, hereafter--Well, perhaps
you've put new force into me by your admonitions." But his voice broke
a little over the intentionally careless words.

Opdyke ignored the allusion.

"Then why not go to Whittenden?" he inquired, as carelessly as he was
able.

Brenton arose and stood, erect, looking down at his old friend
intently, as if anxious that Opdyke should lose no fragment of his
meaning.

"Because, now more than ever," he said, a little bit insistently; "I
feel it would be impossible for me to go away from the college. To
change now would be a confession of another failure. If I am to make
good at all, it must be here and soon. Besides," and now his accent
changed; "I must stay on here and keep my house open, Opdyke. The time
may come, when Mrs. Brenton wishes to come back to me. If it does come,
she must find everything ready, waiting for her to make her realize
that, at last, she is once more at home."

And then, as Ramsdell came inside the room, he turned and went away
down the stairs. Watching him, Reed Opdyke could not but feel reassured
on his account. Whatever his anxieties for himself and Olive, he could
not fail to realize that, unknown to any of them, looking on, the
steadying processes in Brenton had begun.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

All the world admitted that the summer was a trying one, that year. All
the world, with half a dozen exceptions, turned migratory, in the hope
of finding better weather farther on. The exceptions included the
Opdykes who stayed at home on Reed's account; the Keltridges who
remained in mercy to those of the doctor's patients who were too poor
to pay the price of a railway ticket to the seashore, even for a day;
and Brenton who never, since his wife had left him, had slept a night
away from home. That Katharine would one day come back to him, Brenton
was so firmly convinced that he saw no need of insisting on his belief
to other people. It was his one steadfast ambition to keep the home
always ready to welcome her back; always to keep it as nearly as
possible as she had left it, so that her home coming might accomplish
itself without the slightest jar.

In a sense, despite the chasm which had opened out between them, a
chasm, as he now admitted